


The Old Straight Track

by ZanyNY



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:08:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29644182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZanyNY/pseuds/ZanyNY
Summary: Auror Potter arrives in the USA tired, jaded, and more than a little resentful. Transferred involuntarily to MACUSA, he is tasked with investigating the unusual town of Mystic Falls, a town which is proving nothing but a Statute of Secrecy migraine for US officials.Harry loves danger, loves purpose, loves a mission. But with the layers of local politics the key to unlocking this case, he might finally have bitten off more than he can chew.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 13
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I desperately need a creative outlet in just a total comfort fic. Hope this spices up the last gasp of lockdown for my fellow brits.

Eric Chapman had his feet up on the desk, chair tipped precariously backwards as he buried his nose in the Society section of _The Wizard’s Voice_. His sausage-like fingers wrinkled the edges of the newspaper as he scanned the latest rumours of cheating and scandal in Wizarding Hollywood, tutting occasionally at these ‘no good celebrities’ even as his own magi-cell lit up with a message from his mistress about their weekly rendezvous. When a wizard suddenly materialised from thin air and crashed haphazardly in front of him, Eric jumped so violently his chair threatened to upend him onto the floor behind, before forcefully righting itself as it hit the limits of the safety charm Eric had learned to cast the hard way. He hastily banished his newspaper to the break room and tipped forwards to read the arrival documents in front of him.

“Welcome to the United States of America, please state your name and business, and present your passport. Place your left index finger on the scanner provided and...say, whatcha doing down there?”

Harry Potter was currently fighting to disentangle himself from his Auror robes so that he could right himself from the floor of the New Orleans portkey arrival dock. The experience of unintentionally sitting on the floor, staring up into the ruddy face of a man wearing a blue official’s cap was uncomfortably familiar.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, did I?” He snapped irritably. International portkey travel really didn’t agree with him; he had yet to even master landing on his feet during domestic spatial relocation.

“Alright, no need to get snippy” the official in front of him sniffed, and Harry immediately arranged his face to look contrite, lest he find himself with a Probity Probe shoved in places he’d really rather not contemplate. American portkey officials weren’t exactly known for their patience and good humour, and this man bore an alarming resemblance to Uncle Vernon.

Clambering to his feet, Harry pulled his passport from his pocket, laying it down on the desk along with his statement of transfer from the Auror department, and placed his finger on the scanner before him. The scanner happily trilled out “ _Harry Potter, involuntary reassignment_ ” making Harry scowl spectacularly, and the official in front of him stamped his passport with a look of supreme uninterest, already summoning his newspaper back from the tiny room behind him.

“Like I said, welcome to the States, Mr Potter. Hope you have a pleasant stay.” And with that, Harry was dismissed from the desk with a lazy wave of the man’s hand.

Harry stomped from the arrivals dock, his foul mood at his less-than-graceful landing _not_ improved by the revelation that Robards was indeed correct about his lack of reputation stateside. Not that he _wanted_ to be recognised, just that this whole relocation debacle hadn’t been his own idea to begin with, and it would have given Harry at least a little vindictive pleasure to be able to return to England post haste with a ‘ _ha! I told you so_ ’ ready on his tongue. No such luck, it would seem.

Instead, Harry continued on to find himself met at the exit by a burly figure with a frighteningly impressive moustache, his MACUSA Auror robes immaculate in comparison to Harry’s rumpled uniform.

“Auror Potter” the wizard barked out, shaking Harry’s hand with two efficient pumps that had the English wizard subtly flexing his fingers to regain feeling. “Auror Zachary Benjamin, pleasure to meet you.”

“Pleasure, Auror Benjamin.”

“Bah, let’s dispense of the formalities right off, Harry. Call me Zach, I’ll be your contact while you’re stateside.”

Harry grinned up at the burly Auror, who was regarding him with open warmth Harry was unused to seeing on the faces of his British colleagues. His new contact had a gruff edge that immediately reminded Harry of Alastor Moody, with an element of steel in his eyes that showed this was not a man to be trifled with.

“Then it’s even more of a pleasure, Zach” Harry said, clapping Zach on the back as they turned to head away from the portkey office.

“First things first, we have a very important order of business” Zach growled out, seriously. “I dunno about you but international travel makes me right hungry, let me show you my favourite spot for breakfast around here.”

“Fuck, Zach. I don’t know you yet, but I’m pretty sure you and I are going to be best friends” Harry laughed, trailing after his culinary tour guide as his stomach gave a resounding rumble.

* * *

Breakfast turned out to be a particularly moan-worthy plate of pain perdu in a nearby diner. Harry barely made eye contact with the pretty dark-haired waitress who placed the order down in front of him, he was already salivating like Ron Weasley at a Sorting Feast.

“Alright, brit, hand over your cash and don’t stiff the lady her tip” Zach nudged at him good naturedly, content to sit with a strong cup of black coffee and laugh at the new boy’s intense enthusiasm for sweet breakfast foods.

Harry moaned around his first mouthful, eyes closed dramatically in pleasure, and he threw down far too many notes on the bill at the end of the table. He grinned sheepishly at the returning waitress.

“Keep the change, thank you.”

The waitress beamed at him.

“Visiting from the UK?” She asked as she scooped the notes into the front pocket of her apron.

“Ah - here for the foreseeable” Harry replied with an unimpressed wrinkle of his nose. “Although I might start feeling less bitter about it if all the food is this good.”

The waitress laughed and turned away with a reminder to call her over if they wanted any top ups. “You enjoy now, I’ll pass on your compliments to Chef.”

When Harry had eaten his fill, and revived himself from his early morning start with at least one full cup of coffee, he waved for a quick refill and then sat back to look at his new companion.

“So, Zach. What exactly have I been roped into to stop me twiddling my thumbs in London” he asked, with more than a little resentment colouring his tone.

Post war life in England had been both nothing like he had thought, and yet everything like he had feared. The-Boy-Who-Lived-Twice couldn’t step foot out of his front door without his every move splashed across the morning’s tabloids. Adults who had hid and allowed a teenager to take on the burden of facing the most powerful wizard in the world, lauded him as if medals and statues would help him forgive them their cowardice. Harry had no time to grieve, a fractured public demanding still more from him. Attendance at this event, a statement for that cause. He was pulled and pulled in all directions until he felt so stretched and constricted that he could barely breathe. Frequent nightmares, a bone-deep exhaustion that no sleep could abate, an inability to concentrate on the thread of conversations around him; Hermione and Ron had gently nudged him in the direction of a mind healer, and intercepted as many demands as they could.

‘ _You’ve given them enough, Harry_ ’ Hermione had said, sadly.

‘ _You’ve given them bloody everything_ ’ was Ron’s growl of agreement.

And then came the offer of employment. A place in the Auror ranks, a fast track through the training Academy. Harry grasped at the first sign of a purpose, of moving forward, of retracing some of his father’s footsteps.

‘ _Consider your motivations for taking this path, Harry_ ’ his mind healer had urged. ‘ _You do not have to live your life in honour of the dead, you don’t have to find another fight_.’

But that was too difficult a message to listen to right now, and progress with mind healing was a journey with many setbacks, not a linear progression.

‘ _I’m not joining you, mate. I’m going to help George in the shop. Don’t you think you’ve had enough danger for one lifetime?_ ’ The sting of betrayal from his best friend who was abandoning him once again.

Still, it seemed in the end that none of Harry’s nearest and dearest need have worried about him being placed in harm's way once again for the Wizarding World. Harry couldn’t shake off the unwanted attention even in the field: puffs of smoke from magical cameras giving away Harry’s stakeout positions; patrols interrupted by groups begging for autographs or ‘ _just one exclusive comment, Mr Potter_ ’. Head Auror Gawain Robards had grown increasingly frustrated at the circus running around his newest recruit, though not nearly as frustrated as Harry, who was feeling increasingly unmoored by long gaps between missions and a lack of control and responsibility.

It all came to a head when Harry joined a team ambushing an illegal potions ring, aiming to capture a brewer who had put several misadventuring teenagers into St Mungos. The photographer for the Daily Prophet, merlin knows how they always knew where Harry was, caused a scene before the brewer could be apprehended. The headline the next day outlining Harry’s mission failure had come with a picture of the young Auror stalking towards the cameraman with a frankly murderous expression on his face, and Harry had spent a week miserably hunched behind his desk going through paperwork and trying to ignore the loud voice in his head calling him a waste of space, a failure, a freak.

All in all, Robards was probably justified in this decision to transfer Harry to a country less enamoured with his every move. Harry had reflected bitterly on more than one occasion that he could have simply been fired instead.

‘ _You’ve got potential, kid_ ’ Robards had said, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. ‘ _They’re wasting it for you. You’re wasted here. Go, learn, get out from behind an investigation desk safely. I can’t offer you that here anymore_.’

The smell of a fresh cup of coffee pushed back into his waiting hands jerked him from his musings, just as Zach pulled a file from his robes and pushed it across the table.

“Mystic Falls, Virginia” Zach said as Harry opened the file and scanned the summary. “A thorn in the side of MACUSA. The magical population seems to become a law unto itself, and that’s without the issue of Scourers in the Town Council.”

“Scourers?”

“Descendants from witch hunters, in a way, but worse because they were descended from witches and wizards who sold our their own for personal gain. Bounties, property disputes, you get it. A lot of money to be made when people are so scared that it only takes a whisper in the right ear to turn a town’s suspicion into a well-sharpened weapon.”

Harry nodded slowly, a frown creasing between his brows.

“After the Salem Trials, a lot of Scourers faded into the no-maj world. Most were content to just enjoy the spoils of their vendettas. They turned their back on magic, and the magical world, or the magical world turned its back on them. Mystic Falls is a rare case. There’s a secret council run by descendants of families who founded the little town, and they’re well aware of magic around them. They know about witches, they know about vampires, they know about werewolves. From what we can tell so far, they clearly have detailed documented knowledge from a Scourer who settled into the town. What we can’t tell, is whether that role has been maintained within the council.”

“An entire town of no-majs with secretive knowledge of the magical world, I can see why that’s a concern.”

“Mmm, exactly” Zach hummed. “The town is based on an intersection of leylines, magical creatures from all over find themselves attracted there. In a town with a population of less than 10,000, you can imagine how quickly that becomes conspicuous. There’s at least vampires, witches, and werewolves in permanent residence, and the Council remain mighty suspicious.”

“The Statute of Secrecy must be stretched to breaking point” Harry mused.

Zach nodded at him, pleased.

“So, where do I come in then?”

“To start with, we at least need thorough reconnaissance. We need to understand the politics of the local factions of magical creatures, and we need to find out more about the Council. If you’re up for it, we’re hoping we can install you in the town. You’d report to me once a week via floo.”

Zach grinned as he watched Harry’s eyes light up with interest.

“It’s going to be a long term mission. Reconnaissance first, and then we plan. You up for it, kid?”

“ _Fuck_ yes” breathed Harry, startling a chuckle out of his new partner. “Sorry, I am just so ready to be busy.”

Zach nodded approvingly. “You can keep your name, you might have noticed it doesn’t trigger stalker tendencies this side of the Atlantic” he teased, making Harry pout. “We can get you settled into a house, they’re big over here and you don’t share walls with neighbours, so plenty of privacy at home if needed.”

“Something bright, maybe with a garden?” Harry asked hopefully, thinking with a shiver of the dank walls of Grimmauld Place that he had left behind in London. Zach shrugged and made a note.

“Now, the majority of magical activity seems to be centred around the local high school, and that’s part of the reason we’ve struggled to find the right recruit to send in” Zach said, his face taking on an alarmingly shark-like grin. “So, Mr Baby Face. How exactly would you feel about enrolling as a high school senior?”

_‘Oh_ ’ thought Harry, ‘ _alarming indeed_ ’.

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, my story has a fractious relationship with canon so: some canon events, some very much not, some happening very out of their timeline. Mostly because a TV show has a lot more free reign to follow all the characters than a book does, and I need everyone a bit older and, y’know, in the same timelines!

“Now then my boy, you be good on your first day of school, won’t you?” Zach was regarding his newest partner’s scowl with undisguised delight as Harry double checked the contents of his book bag before roughly pulling the zip shut.

“Oh shut up, you are rapidly falling down the short list of people in this country that I can tolerate” Harry grumbled.

The imposing Louisianan Auror was resting at utter ease against the wooden kitchen cabinets in Harry’s new Mystic Falls home. As promised, there were no shared walls with neighbours, a bright and homely cottage interior, and a small garden out the back. The garden already had a flower bed, far more unruly than anything that Aunt Petunia would have allowed in her pin-straight Surrey home, bursting with a variety of colours blooming in the late summer sun. Harry already had plans to floo call Neville after school to get some advice on bedding in essential magical plants. Zach was unimpressed with Harry’s lack of appreciation for the usefulness of Herbology in offensive, defensive, and healing magic - sniffing something about ‘arrogant brits’ and their lack of appreciation for natural power. In fact, the majority of Harry’s training at Zach’s local field office in New Orleans had been spent learning just how limited his previous magical education had been, taken under the wing of local practitioners and learning to appreciate the magic contained within the elements around him. Harry could close his eyes and practically feel the ground vibrate with energy now that the witches of New Orleans were through with him.

Zach rumbled out a laugh, and mussed Harry’s already unruly hair, earning himself a shove from the younger man.

“Alright, alright” he grinned, lifting his hands in surrender. “At least I didn’t make you pretend to be younger than you are, right? You can go for a year, get your diploma, get the lay of the land, and get out of there.”

“Only because I pointed out to you that it’s bloody creepy to have a working adult pretend to be a Junior” Harry shuddered, raising his hands in an imitation of the Child Catcher. The issue of Harry attending high school had been their first hurdle, with Harry unwilling to pretend to be younger than his 19 years. As it stood, he would only have a two year gap from the rest of his class, but the differences in their lived experiences already made Harry distinctly uncomfortable. He couldn’t remember the last time his biggest problem was something as simple as petty high school drama.

Zach’s smile softened into something less teasing.

“Don’t forget, Harry, we’re not interested in the no-maj’s here for the most part. No, these supernatural kids haven’t lived through a war, but they’ve been through some pretty intense shit. You’re a lot more similar to them than you think.”

Harry thought back to the file he had examined, the evidence of ritual magical sacrifice detected in the woods close to the town only a few months prior, the roiling anger of witches past heard groaning from the very trees surrounding.  _ ‘Children, forced to act like adults before their time _ ’, the leaves whisper to him. A lot more similar, indeed.

“Fine” he groused, reigning in the pout slightly, and shouldered his rucksack.

“Right then, Harry Potter, late transfer from England, high school senior extraordinaire with a need for a diploma since you’re a foreigner. Are you up for the challenge, Auror?”

Harry straightened his spine and rolled back his shoulders, mouth set in a grimly determined line.

“Ready as I’ll ever be” he said with a sharp nod.

Zach smiled at him and waved, before disappearing with a crack, leaving Harry behind to start his assignment. Or really, his new life. Harry took a deep breath, and yanked open the front door, stepping out into the glaring Virginia sun.

* * *

“Fresh meat, two o’clock” Caroline giggled, nudging Bonnie.

“Oh no, I cannot do this again. Who do you think this one is here to murder?”

“I don’t know but he is  _ cute _ , if he wants to murder me I might consider letting him.”

Bonnie tutted a laugh and whacked Caroline on the arm as the two of them checked out a student they didn’t recognise making his way into their history class. The boy had the messiest hair either of them had ever seen, and a jagged lightning-shaped scar cutting across his forehead and into his eyebrow.

“Do you think he rides a motorcycle?” Caroline whispered, eyeing up his wind-swept hair and leather jacket.

“Caroline, come on, I can _ not _ handle you going after yet another bad boy type!”

Caroline pouted and flopped dramatically into her seat, just as Alaric bustled into the room.

“Hello seniors! New year, new semester, hopefully a fresh new attitude from some of you” he teased, drawing laughs from the class. “Right let’s - ah fuck -“

Alaric went to pull out his chair and almost toppled over as it unexpectedly refused to move from it’s spot on the floor. He didn’t miss the way Elena had to turn her head to hide her grin behind her hair.

“The infamous senior prank night, how could I forget? Make memories while you can kids. Elena, stand up and give me your chair huh?”

Elena let out a small huff of faux outrage before smiling good naturedly and offering her chair to her current guardian. “Can’t let senior citizens stand all class, can we?” She cheeked, earning an amused ‘ _ touché’  _ from Alaric.

Harry stood to the side of the teacher’s desk throughout this exchange, smiling fondly as he thought of his own rapport with Professor McGonagall back at Hogwarts. His small chuckle at the Elena girl’s quip earned him the attention of the teacher.

“Ah! New kid! Distract the class from my humiliation by introducing yourself” he demanded, waving at Harry vaguely before settling himself in the borrowed seat and leaning back with his hands behind his head. Harry rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“Er, right. Harry Potter, from England. Need a diploma this side of the pond so…” he shrugged, and looked to Alaric with an eyebrow raised to signify ‘ _ that enough? _ ’. Alaric nodded and waved the kid over to a spare seat, before immediately launching into the day’s lessons.

Harry settled into the seat next to an alarmingly perky blonde, who hadn’t even tried to hide her delight at the seating arrangement.

“Hi!” She said, sticking out her hand abruptly. “I’m Caroline.”

Harry smiled and shook her hand slowly. She had an incredibly firm grip; he found himself immediately wishing he could massage the feeling back into his fingers. Instead he reached over to her friend who had offered her hand and introduced herself as Bonnie.

The moment Harry and Bonnie’s hands touched, Bonnie’s face went slack, her eyes not seeming to be focussed on Harry anymore. He could feel the spark of energy running under her skin where their palms met.

“Bonnie?” Caroline whispered, nudging her friend and looking at Harry, alarmed.

Bonnie snapped back to herself with a gasp and stared at Harry. Harry held her gaze and then nodded slowly.

“Maybe we could have a quick chat after class? Uhm, I guess somewhere with people but where we can speak privately?” He offered, seeing her shoulders tense at his initial offer, and realising she might view him as a threat. Both girls nodded seriously, although Harry noticed that Caroline angled herself slightly in front of her friend for the remainder of the class.

Harry wondered to himself just how high the prevalence of the supernatural was in this town, or whether he had the insane luck of meeting another magical being on his very first day, tucking the thought away to review later.

History class in the USA was an experience. Not that Harry had much to compare it to in a muggle capacity, but Alaric was a far cry from the type of teacher Professor Binns had been. The class seemed to largely centre on US and local history, a curriculum apparently approved by the local council. Harry was intrigued to note that said council had been around in an official form since at least the mid 1800s, and resolved to look into the Founder’s archives that Mr Saltzman touched upon. Instead of sleeping on their desks, the teens around him were bright and engaged, and Harry could almost taste the good will and affection the class felt for their teacher. Less than an hour into his class, Harry found himself with a surprising amount of notes given his less-than-studious approach at his own educational institution.

A bell rang to signal the end of the lesson and Mr Saltzman called over the cacophony of chairs scraping back and books being shoved away into bags.

“Mr Potter, Bonnie, mind staying behind for a moment? I’ll give you a pass for your next class.”

When the rest of the class had filtered out, Harry found himself looking at a bigger group than expected. Mr Saltzman was rolling his eyes affectionately at Elena and a sandy-haired boy as they seemed to engage in a silent battle of wills, one which Elena must have won if the set of the boy’s jaw was any indication of how hard his teeth were clenched. Bonnie had stayed, as asked, as had the bubbly Caroline, who was looking distinctly less bubbly and more suspicious. Mr Saltzman shut the door with a snap, and Harry winced as he turned the lock and pulled a blind down over the glass.

“Want to explain, Bonnie?” The teacher prompted, leaning back to sit on his desk, evidently having noticed the girl’s earlier episode.

“You’re a witch” Bonnie said to Harry, a simple statement of fact.

Harry looked at the members of the room and quickly deduced these were exactly the people Zach wanted him to get to understand. A split second of consideration later, he nodded sharply.

“Yes. In England we’d call me a wizard, but from the people I met in New Orleans I understand over here you’d call me a warlock” Harry said, holding firm eye contact with Bonnie. Her eyebrows drew up in surprise.

“OK, and you are here because…?”

Harry chewed on his lip and briefly thought about how to go about this. He could be cagey, tell them only what they needed to know. They were children, for the most part, even more so than himself. He could protect them. An uncomfortable wrench to his gut had him thinking about the Horcrux hunt. How Dumbledore had thought he was protecting Harry, how actually he made everything so much harder. Harry ground his teeth once, twice. Mind made up, he looked up and addressed the entire group.

“OK, I’m a wizard. Similar to Bonnie, but quite different too. The closest approximation I could give you is to say I’m from the Hogwarts coven - wands users, pretty strong magic, not very in tune with the elements or our ancestors, as much as we like to think we get all our personality traits from them. I left school early because a really fucking bad guy was killing all my friends and I had to do something about it” he laughed bitterly to himself at the sheer understatement in his words.

“So you’re running, and you’ve bought trouble here?” The sandy-haired boy snapped at him, Elena pulling him back with a ‘ _ shush, Stefan! _ ’

“Nope” said Harry, popping the ‘p’. “Bad guy is dead, lucky me, I killed him. So I get to join the magical version of the police. You’ve got them over here too, they’re not too happy with the level of unregulated activity going on in his town.” It was Bonnie’s turn to laugh at the understatement of that.

“Magical police?” She prompted.

“MACUSA, and the police are called Aurors. Magical society is meant to be secret from any non-magic users. It’s called the Statute of Secrecy, and you’re pretty fucking close to breaking it in this town.”

“So you’re here to keep us all in line?” Alaric questioned, and Harry shook his head.

“MACUSA is pretty well practised in dealing with magical beings who step out of line. No, this town has a deeper problem. Your council.”

The group seemed to take a collective intake of breath, and looked around at each other.

“Well,” said Alaric, slowly “I can’t really argue with that. But what, exactly, is the issue with the council?”

Harry nodded approvingly at him.

“They know too much, their knowledge is too well documented, they know of the existence of magical creatures when they shouldn’t. We don’t know who they have passed it on to, or what written records there are. MACUSA thinks the council was either set up or infiltrated by a Scourer - a descendant of a witch who turned against their own during the witch trials.”

Bonnie let out a cry of outrage, the whispers of her ancestors turning her blood to fire as she considered the depths a witch would have to fall to to turn against their own blood and magic. Harry looked back at her, his face as grim as she felt.

“So I’m on a mission, I guess. Find out what the hell is going on here, who knows what, report back to MACUSA, and keep the existence of magic secret.”

A shocked silence followed his fierce declaration, and the group exchanged significant looks. Alaric stepped forwards, hand outstretched.

“Alaric Saltzman, vampire hunter, slight issue with staying dead” he said with a warm smile, clasping Harry’s hand firmly. A ripple spread through the group at this acceptance and one by one they all stepped forwards.

“Bonnie Bennett, witch.”

“Caroline Forbes, vampire” Caroline smiled ruefully as Harry raised an enquiring eyebrow, looking between her and Alaric. The teacher shrugged.

“Stefan Salvatore, vampire” said the sandy blonde, shaking Harry’s hand with a kind smile. “And my girlfriend” he said, as the pretty brunette stepped forward.

“Elena Gilbert, doppelgänger” she smiled.

“Wow, you really do have the full house here” Harry laughed. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a werewolf hidden in a cupboard.”

“Nah, Tyler’s got football practice right now” Caroline said, bouncing on the balls of her feet with a bright smile. Harry laughed again, of course he did.

“So… you’re not here to kill us?” Stefan asked, eyebrows drawn up with anxiety that meant Harry could only imagine how often the little group had suffered mortal danger.

“No. Think of me as here for your protection. Your protection is the protection of magic at large. Magic has to stay safe, you understand, right?”

Stefan seemed to immediately accept Harry’s plea; it was only Elena whose face had screwed up in concern.

“But why, though” she mused. “If magic could help so many people, why keep it a secret?”

“I understand - I used to ask exactly the same question. We have potions that can help protect against most non-magical ailments. If we found a magical cure for cancer, why wouldn’t we share it?” Harry had long considered this; it wasn’t something one could avoid when one’s best friend was Hermione Granger. “The fact of the matter is that it is human nature to fear what cannot be understood. We aren’t plentiful or organised enough to keep ourselves safe from those curious enough to use magical beings for personal gain. Just last week MACUSA infiltrated a so-called scientific facility that had kept a vampire prisoner in the basement for violent testing since  _ World War Two _ ! Can you imagine? And yet in all that time they never found a way to use magical blood to save a non-magical person, and keep them from being a sacrifice to magic itself. It’s not a never problem, there are vastly clever minds working on it, but it’s definitely a not right now.”

Elena thought for a moment, before tilting her head in acceptance. She looked vaguely green at the mention of the vampire rescued from captivity.

“Speaking of which,” Harry said sharply, focussing on Alaric. “I cannot allow you to indiscriminately kill vampires. Death-deficient or not, you are not technically a magical being, and it would be within my remit to protect magical beings from your hunting where there is no just cause for the hunt.”

“Implying that there are circumstances of just cause?” Alaric prompted.

“Yes - in times of direct threat to life, lethal force is authorised. That came about in the war against Grindelwald. Not revenge though, there are actually magical courts to deal with crimes committed.”

Alaric gave a small noise of surprise at that, and Harry looked around to see the nonplussed faces surrounding him.

“None of you have heard of your government, or your own magical judicial system?”

At the collective shake of their heads Harry swore under his breath and muttered to himself “not sure if I need Zach or Hermione here for this…” his brow furrowed in thought.

“OK, honestly? I’m going to need to get my thoughts together on this. Maybe you need Magical Society 101 as an extracurricular” he teased, used every bit of ‘American lingo’ he could summon.

“We have History before a free period on Wednesday” Elena suggested. “Why don’t we meet again after that?”

“Not to ask the obvious question” Alaric interrupted, “but how exactly do we know when you are telling the truth?”

Harry considered this for a moment. He could bring veritaserum to school, but if they weren’t familiar with the potion, they would have no reason to trust a liquid that looked and smelled like water. Instead, he sighed to himself, his shoulders slumping, as he realised the obvious solution.

“Er, Bonnie, would you mind terribly taking a seat opposite me?” He offered, miserably.

Bonnie arranged herself delicately on the opposite side of a desk to the mysterious British student, and found her gaze locked against his own across the table. His eyes were wide, open, deep… In fact it felt like she could feel herself falling into them. She watched fascinated as the world around her melted, and a tiny version of Harry Potter looked up at the most humongous, shaggy man Bonnie had ever seen in her life, as the man told Harry with earnest passion that Harry was indeed a wizard. That his parents had been wizards, despite the lies he had been told by his relatives. As Harry attended a school called Hogwarts, the name she remembered Harry has given for his coven; as he had learned magic; learned his place in the world; learned his role in the world; learned what true betrayal and misplaced trust felt like; learned that murder felt heartbreaking even when it felt deserved; learned that it was possible to mourn for a teenager with a common name like  _ Tom _ even when he became a monster who could not bare to be addressed by those three letters. Pulling back from Harry’s eyes, Bonnie wasn’t surprised to feel tears running silently down her cheeks, nor surprised to see her expression mirror on Harry’s own face. She took a deep breath, counted to three, and let it out slowly.

“We can trust him,” she said, firmly. No room for argument, no space for challenge.

And Harry did the unexpected, reaching his hand over the desk not for a handshake, but leading with his pinkie finger, which he carefully linked with Bonnie’s own.

“I Pinkie Promise you can trust me, and that’s about as close to a binding oath as we can get.”


	3. Chapter 3

Caroline appeared at Harry’s elbow as he was packing up his bag after his final class of the day. As interesting as muggle school was, he had a significant headache building behind his eyes; sure, he could recite the properties of wolfsbane, but he hadn’t taken a maths class since he was 10 years old.

“We’re meeting up tonight at The Grill, if you wanted to join?” The blonde vampire offered him with a hopeful smile which Harry tentatively returned.

“Er, sure” he stuttered. “Where exactly is The Grill again?”

“Give me your phone” Caroline demanded, hand already outstretched. “There’s my number, we’re meeting at 7. Bring some quarters for the pool table. Text me your address and I’ll come walk you over. And no drinking under 21 this side of the Atlantic” she said with a significant wink. Harry felt a rush of gratitude to her.

“Thanks, Caroline. Could have been a pretty lonely evening.”

“I know” she said kindly, and gave him a last cheerful wave before bouncing off in the direction of Bonnie.

Harry wandered slowly back home, revelling in the difference in weather between the start of a semester in Mystic Falls, and the start of a term at Hogwarts. Even the leather jacket was starting to feel a bit much, and he tilted his face up to the late afternoon sun with little care as to where he was walking - the streets were so quiet anyway.

So quiet, and yet apparently Harry could still manage to walk smack into someone. His hands flew up automatically to catch himself in the arms of the person he had barrelled into, fingers clutching biceps encased in soft leather. He looked up apologetically into the piercing blue eyes of the man he had accidentally accosted.

“Sorry! Sorry, wasn’t looking where I was going … the sun, y’know?”

The man in front of him snarled and bared his pearly white teeth at him, shaking Harry’s hands off his arms.

“Watch yourself, pretty boy” he snapped, before brushing past Harry and carrying on his way. Harry scowled after him.

“Charming fellow” he said, with a childish urge to stick his tongue out at the man’s retreating back. ‘ _Nice arse, though_ ’, he mused.

By the time he got home, Harry was thoroughly ready to sit down for the evening and just not get back up again. He fortified himself with a cold glass of water, and decided to shower before he scoured the kitchen for something to rustle up for tea.

Hair still dripping after his shower, Harry laid out everything he needed to cook bolognese, and remembered to shoot a text to Caroline with his address ready for later. Despite a decent amount of tuition in household charms from Molly Weasley, Harry still preferred the methodical calm of cooking for himself. With no critical aunt watching him like a hawk, he found he actually enjoyed the process, and though he would _never_ admit it to Mrs Weasley, he thought there was something special about food prepared without magic. The witches of New Orleans had some similar traditions - there was a quiet magic contained within hand prepared food infused with a person’s time and dedication.

He sat down with his dinner, twirling the spaghetti on his fork and remembering with fondness the way Ron used to forgo any attempt at controlling the unruly pasta, simply opting for shoving it into his mouth as Hermione watched on in disgust. He wondered how the two of them were getting on back in England, whether Ron had the courage to ask Hermione to move in with him, yet. He picked up his phone and sent a message to Hermione’s magi-mobile - something Ron, Fred, and Arthur had been puzzled over for months before their big breakthrough. Harry gnawed his lip in guilt at his lack of attention in the months before he left England; last he had heard the magi-mobiles were still in prototype form, but that irritable portkey arrivals officer had clearly been clutching a new model. He checked the time and realised it would be coming up for midnight in London - he’d probably wake to a message from Hermione tomorrow at the earliest.

Harry spent the rest of his dinner occupying himself with writing notes on his first day’s encounters, detailing the key individuals met so far. It was good that he and Zach had agreed that Harry needed only to keep a low profile in terms of the council - he hadn’t gotten much better at lying throughout his Auror training, and could only imagine the suspicion if he’d tried to lie to Bonnie about the reason for his presence in Virginia. Better to limit the reliance on Harry’s less-than-silver tongue; he still cringed whenever the name “Roonil Wazlib” popped into his thoughts at inopportune moments.

Just as Harry was finishing rinsing his pasta bowl, a rapping on his front door echoed through the house.

“It’s open!” He called, emptying the sink and grabbing a kitchen towel to dry the utensils. When no one came in he meandered towards the door, pulling it open to see Caroline sheepishly looking at him from the doorstep.

“Er, you actually have to invite me in” she said, reaching out to tap her foot on what seemed like an invisible wall at the threshold of his door.

“Huh” said Harry, eloquently, trying to remember if he’s ever learned that in Defence. “Come on in.”

He hurried to put the dried utensils away in the kitchen, trying to keep his mind from wandering to Remus, before grabbing his mobile and shrugging on his jacket.

“So, who’s coming along tonight?” Harry asked as he locked his front door behind him, and Caroline began to lead him in the direction of The Grill.

“Small crowd, you met most of them today. Elena, Bonnie, Stefan, hopefully Tyler” she said, and Harry didn’t miss the blush across her cheeks as she mentioned their absent werewolf footballer. “And our friend Matt works there, but he’s not magical in any way so we can’t talk about any of that stuff around him.”

Harry nodded. “I mean, probably best not to talk about it in public much anyway” he reasoned. “Especially not with a council as switched on as yours seems to be.”

Caroline frowned a little at that.

“Yeah, I guess maybe we’re not as careful as we like to think we are,” she said.

Harry immediately felt guilty at the crease of worry marring Caroline’s brow. He nudged her gently with his elbow.

“So… Tyler?” He asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively until the vampire blushed and laughed, shoving Harry a little harder than intended (he assumed).

“Oh shut up, you do _not_ know me well enough for teasing yet,” she complained, but her pleased smile suggested otherwise.

“You’re holding out on me! Come on, we can talk pretty boys and terrible taste. Let me guess, a bit of a bad boy type?”

Caroline cackled at that. “You’re as bad as Bonnie!” She protested, but linked her arm through Harry’s and practically skipped them along to the bar. “Talking about boys, hmmm?” And it was her turn to wiggle her eyebrows suggestively. Harry simply shrugged at her.

“I don’t think about it too hard,” he said, rubbing his hard over the back of his neck awkwardly. “I mean, my last relationship was with a girl, and _fuck_ was she hot, every guy in school wanted her” he said, thinking fondly of Ginny who was now at training camp with the Holyhead Harpies and probably had enough groupies to form a dedicated fan club. “But there’s been plenty of guys in between,” he said. Plenty of guys in anonymous muggle clubs with smart mouths, and bitchy tongues, and a propensity to smirk, once he had finally had the time and space to think about whether it was really such a heterosexual experience to obsess about a certain blonde prat throughout ones entire schooling career. Plenty of frustration at each day to pour into flings that could be well hidden from magical journalists. He threw Caroline an utterly lascivious look that shocked a giggle out of her.

“And just when I was thinking you were far too sweet to understand anything about bad boys” she grinned, pulling open the door to The Grill and ushering Harry inside.

“Care!”

Elena waved them over to the pool table, greeting Harry with a blinding smile and a quick hug. Harry blushed at the easy affection bestowed on him by the American teens, but a pleased feeling was settling deep in his gut at having found acceptance so easily. Something about watching this group laugh and tease and cuddle up reminded him of Hogwarts, and he felt a harsh wave of nostalgia knock the breath right out of him. A hand clasped to his shoulder brought him back into the room, and Stefan grinned at him before stepping over to the table to take his shot next.

“Right,” Harry said, clapping his hands together. “Drink, anyone? Hi, you must be Tyler, can I get you a drink?”

Harry wandered off to the bar with all their orders, and leaned over the countertop with interest to examine what was on offer. He gave his order to the fit blonde bartender and pulled out a stool to wait on as the guy got him a tray for all the glasses. Suddenly, the chair next to him was occupied.

“Donovan, bourbon,” the occupant barked, much to the blonde bartender’s annoyance. He shoved a glass over to the guy and returned to making Harry’s drinks.

Harry turned to the guy with an unimpressed eyebrow raised, and was surprised to see the man he had bumped into earlier. He was in the same black leather jacket, the colour a running theme for the rest of his outfit, and he clutched the glass of bourbon like a lifeline, his dark hair falling into his eyes with a casual elegance that Harry’s could never have achieved. Noticing Harry staring he looked up and tilted his head, a smirk pulling up one side of his mouth.

“Pretty boy.”

“Arsehole” Harry fired back, with a roll of his eyes, and turned back to the bar.

The guy chuckled and took a swig of his drink.

“Probably deserved,” he allowed. “You new around here?”

Harry nodded tightly, not wanting to encourage any further conversation with this guy who reminded him uncomfortably of a fitter version of Draco Malfoy.

“Damon, lay off my new student.”

Alaric appeared, clapping Harry on the shoulder, before jerking the bourbon out of Damon’s hand and taking a large gulp. Damon rolled his eyes, but didn’t seem too put off by the drink theft.

“Next round’s on you then, Ric,” he said, eyes sliding back over to Harry. “New student?”

“From England.”

“Got a name?”

“I reckon I do, yeah,” snarked Harry, not offering it up to the man. The bartender chose that moment to push the tray carrying Harry’s orders towards him and placed the bill down.

“Thanks, Matt” Alaric said, throwing some notes down and waving off Harry’s thanks. “See ya later, Harry.”

“See you later, pretty boy” Damon called at Harry’s retreating figure, and Alaric didn’t miss the appreciative way his eyes followed the young man.

“He’s a new senior, but a bit older than the others” he offered casually to his friend, and Damon raised a brow at him. “Wicked sense of humour, bit of a _witch_ , if you catch my drift” and Damon’s mouth fell open slightly before he pursed his lips together.

“Consider me intrigued,” he said, before turning to the bar. “Donovan, give us the bottle instead. Come on Ric, let’s go somewhere we can talk.”

* * *

“Damon wasn’t bothering you, was he?” Caroline fussed as Harry returned with the drinks, and Harry wrinkled his nose.

“Nah, is he always that…”

“Abrasive?” Yeah, pretty much” she said, her expression mirroring Harry’s. “He’s Stefan’s older brother, but they’re chalk and cheese, I swear. How someone as sweet and sensitive as Stefan is related to _him_ is anyone’s guess.”

Stefan appeared suddenly at Caroline’s side at the sound of his name. “All good?” He asked.

“Yeah yeah, Harry’s just been getting acquainted with your brother” Caroline huffed exasperatedly.

“Actually I ran into him earlier, literally, so we’re off to a great start” said Harry, attempting to lighten the mood. Stefan grimaced.

“Ah, he’s maybe an acquired taste, but family, right?”

Harry shrugged.

“I wouldn’t know, no siblings, and my parents died before I was two” he said, and then mentally kicked himself for bringing the tone down _again_.

“Oh good! You can join the dead family club” Caroline said with alarming enthusiasm. “So far we’ve lost Elena’s parents, my dad, Matt’s sister, Elena’s aunt Jenna - that’s why Alaric is looking after her and her brother at the moment” she reeled off. “You can probably throw in Damon and Stefan’s parents too but I since that was like a million years ago I think they’re a little bit over it by now.”

Stefan rolled his eyes.

“A century and a half, and some of us are a little less over it than might be expected” he said, glancing at the door Damon had left through with a bottle of bourbon clutched in his hand.

“What are we talking about?” Elena asked, reaching over Harry to pick up her drink.

“Dead parents” Caroline enthused, causing Elena to choke on her soda. “Harry’s parents are both dead. I’m really starting to think we need a support group in this town, I swear.”

Elena turned to Harry with large, sorrowful eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely, and Harry smiled at her.

“It’s OK, I never really knew them. My aunt brought me up, but I certainly don’t count her as family, and I get the impression you actually liked your aunt, so I’m much more sorry for your loss.”

Stefan put his arm around Elena protectively, giving her an encouraging squeeze.

“Jenna was the victim of a ritual a couple months back,” Elena muttered, miserably. Harry’s mouth dropped into a small ‘o’. “A vampire/werewolf hybrid called Klaus. Luckily Damon’s scared him off for now.”

Harry shook his head slowly and looked into his glass as he processed this. Call it luck, call it fate, call it meddling ancestral witches and ancient ley lines pulling together everyone who needs it, he couldn’t believe his first friends in the town also seemed to be holding so much information for his case.

“Would you guys mind doing an interview at some point, letting me write notes down for MACUSA?” He asked.

“I wouldn't,” Elena said determinedly. “In return for lessons on magic and that legal system you talked about. A safe way to get revenge sounds perfect.”

Harry marvelled at the way the teen’s beautiful face instantly transformed to scarily determined as she bared her teeth, and he bit back a laugh that she might feel was patronising, instead nodding seriously at her.

“Of course. I feel like there’s a lot to learn from each other.”

“Harry! Your turn on the table” Bonnie called from the other side of their little area, already racking up the balls.

Harry stood uncertainly to the side as Bonnie deftly broke, and handed him the cue with a clear challenge in her eyes.

“Er, don’t think I’ve ever played pool before,” he said, looking at the table full of brightly coloured balls about the same size as the snitch.

“Use the white, don’t pot the black, and you’re golden, magic boy,” Bonnie said, patting Harry on the shoulder. Harry leaned over the table and couldn’t help but smile to himself as he thought about how one of Oliver’s quidditch diagrams with squiggles and arrows would really come in handy about now to work out all the angles, before knocking one of the coloured balls into a pocket with decided ease. “I think I like this game.”


	4. Chapter 4

5am found Harry nursing a strong cup of tea at his kitchen table, slowly dunking in biscuits and snatching them out and into his mouth before they could collapse into a soggy mess. It was a waking ritual first suggested by his mind healer; the nightmares never did let him sleep in for long. A methodical routine, something easy to focus on and keep himself grounded. Lots of sugar in the cup of particularly bad days, the ache in his teeth keeping him present. A sudden trill from his mobile had him jumping nearly out of his skin, and half the current Rich Tea biscuit slopped sadly into his mug.

Harry’s heart filled to bursting as the screen of his phone filled with a familiar riot of curly hair.

“Hermione,” he smiled. “Bit early, isn't it?”

“Is it?” She shot back, one eyebrow raised. “How many biscuits have you been through this morning?”

“...five.”

“Exactly,” she sniffed. “I wanted to catch you before school - also you  _ have  _ to tell me what muggle high school is like, and how the curriculum compares, and the social dynamics - sorry sidetracked. Are you safe? Are you settled? Any friends yet?”

Harry found himself laughing as she tripped over her words in her rush to get them all out; he could only imagine the long list of questions she had been storing up to ask him.

“Muggle high school is fine, and much less bitchy than the TV shows,” he said. “You’d be both fascinated and frustrated at their history syllabus: it’s determined locally and very US focussed. Although, no more narrow minded than Binn’s obsession with the Goblin Wars,” he allowed with a laugh. “I hate maths just as much as I thought I would, I agree with you that it’s not a subject that wizards should be allowed to ignore, and most of all I hate that they drop the ‘s’ off the end.” He shuddered.

Hermione snorted. “Linguistic differences aside, wizarding currency is bonkers, how do we all cope without even basic maths schooling?” She cried, a well-hashed argument over many an evening pint.

Harry didn’t miss the way her eyes jumped over his face, cataloguing the dark circles, less stark now that his skin had actually had some exposure to the sun.

“I’m safe,” he reassured softly. “My partner is nice, he got me a great house. It’s light, airy, and there’s a garden.”

“Oh good! You should call Neville soon, get some Mandrakes planted behind some muggle-repelling wards, maybe Goldenrod and Lavender too…”

Harry nodded along patiently as she whittled off a list of plants and herbs that might be tactically useful.

“Maybe vervain too - you’re sitting in a vampire nest, it would be only prudent.”

“Huh?”

Hermione tutted at Harry’s eloquent question.

“Come on Harry, this was from Remus’ year! Vervain protects against mind compulsion, and vampires can’t touch or ingest it.”

“Oh that does ring a bell - Zach wasn’t sure how reliable the supply would be out here, we worked on Occlumency instead. He’s a much better teacher than Snape was.”

They both shared a grim look.

“Still, worth it to protect anything you don’t want errant vampires touching, or y’know, anyone you don’t want them bleeding dry. Like yourself, hopefully,” Hermione said, regarding him with a flat look.

Harry nodded, and distracted Hermione from his lack of care for his own personal safety by telling her about the people he had met so far, and how they had taken him under their figurative wings without prompting. Hermione looked utterly relieved at this information, though urged him to ‘ _ keep your guard up, Harry, not everyone can be trusted _ .’

“Yes, I know that Hermione, I am the one with the Auror training,” Harry sighed, rolling his eyes. “Oh! Actually that reminds me, they’ve asked if I’ll trade their witness statements for classes on American magical society - any books you can recommend?”

“Oh! Fascinating! Yes of course, I’ll have a look and text you a list you can owl order - have you got an owl? Never mind, I’m sure you can get your partner to deliver them somehow.”

‘ _ Lecture averted, _ ’ thought Harry, missing the way Hermione’s face had lifted into a sneaky grin.

“So, what’s the talent like in America?” She asked, shocking a laugh out of Harry.

“Hermione! I can’t talk about things like that with you, you’re basically my sister,” he protested, blushing violently. “Though, Merlin help me, I don’t know if it’s America or just this town, but everyone looks like the love child of a Victoria’s Secret model and a star quarterback - see I’m integrating already - the talent pool is  _ wide _ .”

Hermione cackled wickedly.

“You have to keep me in the loop, you know I live vicariously through you now that I’m dating a guy I met at eleven -  _ eleven _ , Harry!” She said, exasperatedly. “Plus Ginny is bound to ask for the gossip and I’ve got an elf-wine night in the diary with her for the weekend.”

Harry rolled his eyes fondly.

“Well you can tell my lovely ex that, since she didn’t want me back, I’ve clearly been emotionally damaged,” he lamented, swooning exaggeratedly to make Hermione giggle. “The guy who has caught my eye most here reminds me of a cross between young Sirius and Draco Malfoy and if  _ that _ doesn’t have me automatically thinking of floo calling my mind healer…” he trailed off with a shudder as Hermione wrinkled her nose.

“Ugh, not sure how I feel about that. I’ll reserve judgement until I see how fit he is.”

“You have been spending  _ far _ too much time with Ginny.”

Hermione made Harry promise to ring her soon, maybe they could make the early morning catch up a regular occurrence, before hanging up swiftly as she realised she was about to run late for work. Well, only 10 minutes early, so unacceptably late in Hermione’s world.

* * *

True to form, by the time Alaric’s class on Wednesday had rolled around, Hermione had already researched the books Harry needed, and had hounded Zach into ordering them and delivering them to Harry. Harry didn’t think too closely about how she knew who his new partner was, nor how she had got in contact so quickly.

‘ _ She’s scary, brilliant, but scary _ .’

“The next time I need to come here at 5 in the morning, it had better be a life threatening emergency,” Zach said groggily, eyes not even fully open as he pushed the books into Harry’s hands and disapparated with a  _ crack _ that had Harry glad for the lack of close neighbours. A few eyebrow hairs fluttered to the ground.

The ability to simply text to confirm that their post-History lesson was on had Harry nostalgic for the days of coded messages through charmed coins. The way Alaric locked and shuttered the door made him shiver with the recollection of hurrying younger students into the Room Of Requirement while watching the Map like a hawk.

“Oh, er, actually Alaric, there’s one more coming,” Stefan said sheepishly.

Alaric counted the number of teens in the room, noting Caroline had encouraged Tyler along.

“Is there another supernatural teen I don’t know about?”

“As long as it’s not - “

“Hello kiddies, it’s come to my attention that I might not know everything after all.” Harry swore under his breath as the leather-clad arsehole from Monday swanned into the room, although from the amused expression shot his direction, it wasn’t uttered quietly enough.

“- Damon Fucking Salvatore.” Finished Caroline, grumpily.

Damon took a seat in the back row of the class, tipping his chair back and resting his feet on the desk, looking at Harry expectantly. Alaric pushed the classroom door shut with an exaggerated sigh and locked them in together. Harry suddenly felt like he should have paid more attention to Hermione’s warnings. Instead, he snapped at Damon,

“If you tip your chair back and crack your skull, I’m not repeating any of the material while you regenerate what few brain cells you might have.”

The grin Damon gave him was utterly delighted, and Harry felt him stomach drop to somewhere around his toes.

“It’s ok, I have plenty of brain cells to spare, and I can borrow Bonnie’s notes, can’t I Bon-Bon?”

Bonnie practically hissed at him before turning her back and dropping into a chair. The rest of the group followed suit, grabbing spare seats and sitting down, all eyes turned to Harry. For a small moment, Harry thought he would panic at the attention. He took a deep breath in, held it, and let it out slowly. ‘ _ I have expertise that is worth being shared’ _ he reminded himself, channelling his inner Healer Ryle, the silent voice of his mind healer providing encouragement.

Letting the tension go, he dropped his shoulders, and felt the familiar frisson of excitement at teaching run down his spine. From the back of the room, Damon was regarding him with narrowed eyes. Harry ignored him, and summoned a pen for the whiteboard.

“Ok so, would we prefer to start with current affairs, or a brief history of how we got here?” He asked the group.

“History!” Demanded Alaric, his eyes already wide with fascination, focussed on the pen now in Harry’s hand. Harry nodded and smiled, internally resolving to use magic as often as possible in private, to get the acclimatised to its presence.

He settled into place on top of the desk, and began to weave the tale, conjuring sparks to form images to bring his words to life.

“Magic in America is as old as America itself, as is magic everywhere. Magic isn’t new to one group of people and then bought elsewhere, it comes from the very fabric of nature around us. Native Americans had magic long before European settlers, and indeed magic-users on both sides of the Atlantic knew of each other long before non-magical beings sailed across the ocean. Magic wasn’t a hidden act, not like it has to be now. Native American magic was rooted in animals and plants, and forms the basis for a lot of coven magic in the USA, including that of the Bennett witches, Bonnie.”

Bonnie was staring transfixed, torn between watching Harry’s kind eyes, and watching the story unfold in the shimmering display before them.

“By the time magical beings made their way over from Europe, they found a country already in despair, with Native American’s displaced from their lands, unable to tend to their magical plants, or to build on their ancestral magic, and the habitats of their magical animals destroyed. The community was already so wary of non-magic Europeans, and the new magic-users were frustrated at the hostility, and the lack of access to necessities such as apothecaries. They had forgotten how to tend the land to nurture the magic themselves.

“Left without the means to continue their main livelihoods from Europe, some magic users turned inwards, let their magic become bitter and twisted along with their sense of self. They capitalised on puritan religious suspicion, the rumours that Native Americans were possessed by evil spirits and could transform into animals - a perfectly normal, if impressive ability, it’s called being an Animagus - anyway, the rumours had seeped into non-magic society, and people were running scared.

“The Scourers, instead of making their own honest living from what they could in the land they were given, began to turn in their fellow magic users for the bounty placed on their heads. This culminated in the Salem Witch Trials in the 1690s, may those souls always know peace.”

He paused here, noticing Bonnie surreptitiously wiping a tear from her eye, no doubt feeling the pull from the witches in her ancestral line.

“So, the start of current American magical society was founded on fear, and distrust. In a world where no one could know who to turn to, who to trust with their abilities, who to help with their magic, the settlers instead fractured. Some family units formed covens which to this day stay distanced from the rest of magical society. A large proportion of them turned inwards to create a centralised institution that could protect them, like they had in their former countries. And a large motive for forming this institution was revenge. The Magical Congress of the United States of America, or MACUSA, was founded immediately after the Salem atrocities, and the first department established was the Aurors, tasked with hunting the Scourers down.”

“But, if there’s something as big as a magical Congress, why haven’t we heard about it?” Elena questioned.

“One hundred years after MACUSA was founded, the president, that is, the president of MACUSA, passed a law which strictly segregated the magical and non-magical communities after a Scourer descendent started to widely spread the information he had been passed down. Magical society went into hiding, hidden carefully behind charms and wards which prevent it being noticed by non-magical beings. There are whole towns within towns, usually accessed by something completely non-descript, like tapping on the correct brick of a wall.” He smiled fondly as he thought of his first visit to Diagon Alley. He’d have to find the nearest magical community to show them; New Orleans was by far the most interesting, but a bit of a trek without magical means of transportation.

“That technically ended in the mid 1900’s, so if you have a partner or sibling who isn’t magical, you can now tell them about magic. And if the relationship breaks down, there’s a department that specialises in removing their memories of magic.”

Caroline’s eyebrows were pinched in anguish.

“I could have just asked for my Dad’s memories to be removed?” She choked, and Tyler squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Is that the plan for the council?” Damon called from the back of the room, startling Harry with his participation.

“Some,” Harry said, slowly. “Depending on their level of knowledge or involvement. And depending on whether their actions could be determined a crime under the anti-Scourer laws. American wizarding society has a long memory for those crimes.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just try the entire council, in that case?” Damon pressed, clearly suspicious of this so-called magical government.

Harry nodded, mouth set in a grim line.

“I won’t lie to you, magical institutions can be as corrupt as their non-magical counterparts. There’s plenty of bigotry and elitism that allows a small few to get away with anything they want. But the team working on this is a team of good eggs - I get the impression the problem hasn’t been escalated outside of those who can be trusted.”

Zach had personally hand selected his task force, including Harry the moment he had spotted the transfer notice on the Head Auror’s desk, and ensured they all remained tight-lipped with jinxes that would put Hermione to shame. Harry had briefly considered being outraged, but his experience with Ministry corruption quickly had him glad for the protection.

Harry spent the remainder of their time fielding questions from the group: Alaric seemed utterly fascinated by the interaction between non-magical and magical settlement in the New World, and had draw up diagrams of the layers of MACUSA departments; Tyler was relieved to know there were other werewolf groups out there, even ones created from other werewolves, the same fact that disturbed Damon no end; Bonnie was fascinated at the concept of magical schools, whole institutions filled with others like her.

“Actually Bonnie, I bought you this,” Harry said, handing over a folded piece of parchment. “The Salem Witches Institute is for adult witches, and they have witches from all over America who practice a huge variety of magic, might be something you want to consider after college?”

Bonnie gripped the parchment, hungrily looking down at the pamphlet advertising the Institute.

At the sound of the bell, the teens began to file out of the classroom ready for their morning break. Harry bent over his rucksack, packing away his books manually, enjoying the extra thinking time.

“Well, well, well, not just a pretty face then.”

He jumped at the voice purring his ear, shoulder colliding with Damon’s jaw and causing the vampire to bite his own tongue.

“ _ OW _ \- ugh, smooth.” Damon bitched, rubbing his chin and frowning at the wizard in front of him.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but personal space much, Damon?”

“Never heard of it.” He grinned.

Harry absolutely did  _ not _ melt at the practically feral flash of those white teeth between plump red lips. He was rapidly learning that a devious smirk was Damon’s default face.

“Stefan told me to invite you to our house after school so we can continue this ...  _ fascinating …  _ conversation. Hand over your phone, and I’ll give you my number.”

Damon held his hand out expectantly, aiming for casual nonchalance and missing by a good 30 yards. Harry blushed and fumbled for his phone, watching Damon enter his number and text himself from Harry’s phone.

“Oh, god help me,” whined Alaric, miming retching into his hands. “I’m not coming if you’re both going to act like this.”

Harry immediately flushed further and snatched his phone back from Damon, turning and fleeing from the classroom.

“I’ll call you later, pretty boy,” Damon called after him. “Come on, Ric, why you gotta ruin my fun?”

“Get out of my classroom, Damon.”

* * *

“Ugh Stefan, why did you have to set your brother on me about after school?”

Stefan looked up from his lunch, confused.

“I think my exact words were, ‘stay away from Harry, I’ll ask him if he’s free at lunch’” he said, Elena laughing into her sandwich beside him.

“Therein lies your mistake,” said Caroline, sagely. “If you tell Damon he can’t have something, he must instantly have it. Like a toddler.”

“Therein? Caroline, have you got a word of the day calendar?”

Caroline shoved Tyler playfully, accidentally upending him onto the floor beside their bench. She offered him a hand, wincing apologetically.

“Jeez, Care. Starting to understand why Stefan is so good at football.”

“Says you, mutt,” the vampire snorted.

“Anyways,” Caroline interjected loudly at the start of the boys’ bickering. “Now that we’re getting Harry alone without any real adult supervision, I think we should have a welcome party.” She flashed the group a winning smile, bouncing in her seat.

“Caroline, it’s a Wednesday!” Elena complained.

“Yeah, and tell me you aren’t all going to need a drink after we tell Harry the history of -  _ vampires _ \- in this town,” she said, ducking down and whispering the town’s key trigger word.

“Fair point. What are we bringing.”

“Yes! OK, bring your own beer, plus Damon always has a decent stash of bourbon, and we should totally teach Harry the rules of beer pong - I’ll bring the cups.”

Harry stared at the blonde wide-eyed as she instantly transformed into a party planning force to be reckoned with.

“Err… do I get a say in this?”

“No.” Was the quick reply from all three girls.

Tyler and Stefan shrugged their shoulders.

“You learn to go with it.”

Which was how Harry found himself once again being collected from his home by Caroline that evening, having sent a hasty text to Neville apologising and asking if they could please rearrange their plant discussion, bottle of firewhisky in tow.

“We have to drive, it’s a bit out the way. We’ll crash at theirs after.” Caroline said, ushering Harry into her frankly humongous black car. Harry was no stranger to cars, but there were cars and  _ cars  _ and so far everyone in the USA was definitely inclined towards the latter.

“Cool. Once I’ve been there once, I can apparate us next time.”

“Like teleporting?”

“Yeah, I guess like teleporting, but makes you feel a bit more sick. Best not to do it after a few drinks,” he chuckled.

Caroline spent the short drive pointing out various landmarks to Harry, taking slight detours to make sure she could cover everything of note. There was only so much time a detour could add to a journey in a town as small as Mystic Falls.

They arrived at the boarding house as Stefan was opening the door for Elena and Alaric, Tyler’s car pulling up shortly afterwards. The group managed to amass a frankly impressive amount of alcohol on the kitchen table, and Alaric examined the firewhisky with interest.

“We can compare it to muggle whisky later, if you like,” Harry said, remembering his and Ron’s own experiments the moment they were of age and no longer in mortal danger.

“Muggle?”

“Oh, non-magic person. We say muggle in the UK, but over here they call them no-majes.”

Alaric grimaced.

“Straight to the point, very American,” he laughed.

Harry thought about Caroline’s comments from earlier, and picked up the bottle before they walked back into the sitting room.

“On second thoughts, it sounds like this conversation could use a bit of liquid courage,” he said, eyeing the way Elena was nervously pulling on her sleeves. He summoned some red cups from Caroline’s stack and poured out a decent glass for each person.

“Bottoms up, Elena,” he said, tapping his cup against hers and watching her reaction closely. She choked as the liquid hit the back of her throat, and then the tension instantly bled out of her shoulders, her back straightening.

“What is that? It’s like… it’s like drinking bravery,” she said, running her tongue over her lips to catch any errant drops. Harry grinned at her.

“Perfect for this conversation, don’t you think?”

The rest of the gang fortified themselves with their drinks, the vampires in particular perking up.

“Fuck, that’s even better than bourbon for the cravings,” Stefan muttered, staring into his cup with wonder.

“I’ll order some other supplies that might be of interest,” Harry offered. “Vampires are well known in my world, there’s whole sweet lines for vampires.” He tried very hard not to look at Damon as he imagined the vampire curling his tongue around a blood pop. ‘ _ Obscene, behave yourself, Harry _ ’ he internally berated himself.

“OK so, plenty more where that came from. Top yourselves up as you like.”

Harry settled into the armchair in front of the thankfully unlit fire, unshrinking a notepad and biro that he had stowed in the pocket of his jeans. Elena set her jaw, gripped Stefan’s hand, and began her tale.

Harry interjected several times to ask questions, and determine timelines, as Elena spoke. She told him of her parent’s deaths, of Stefan saving her, of her Aunt Jenna stepping in as guardian of herself and her younger brother. She told him of discovering she was a doppelgänger, her vampire counterpart a former lover and sire of both Stefan and Damon. Damon, sitting in an armchair pulled back from the rest of the group, scowled at the mention of Katherine, and reached to top up his cup of firewhisky.

His scowl only deepened further as they explained his opening of the tomb beneath Fell’s Church, his confession of a one-hundred-and-fifty-year obsession laid bare to the room. Harry’s eyes flicked over to the vampire at this, thought he could see the mortification and despair etched around Damon’s eyes. Then again, probably not, the Damon of their stories sounded every bit the arsehole, and he hadn’t corrected their version of events. That Katherine had betrayed Damon, that she was never in the tomb and instead had been roaming free, of her return to wreak misery and havoc on all of their lives.

He surprised Harry when he piped up to explain both he and Ric had infiltrated the town council.

“Smart,” hummed Harry, approvingly.

“Yeah well, I did want to kill Damon originally, made sense having back up,” admitted Alaric, sheepishly. “He turned my wife, although I thought he’d just killed her at the time.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose and he looked over at Damon, who shrugged unapologetically.

“She literally asked for it, I can’t say no to a pretty face.”

Caroline’s turning, werewolves, Original vampires, Harry’s charmed biro flew across the page faster than Rita Skeeter’s Kwik Kwotes Kwill as he processed the information they gave him. Caroline sobbed through the story of her dad trying to condition her out of vampirism, of the accident during her rescue that left him mortally injured, of him refusing her blood even though it could heal him.

‘ _ Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children, Caroline. It’s okay. This is life. This is what it means… to be human. _ ’

When Elena reached the part of her story concerning the Sun and the Moon curse she cut off with a choke, and took a fresh gulp of firewhisky.

“Jules, and Jenna…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “Jeremy tied his life to mine, but he’s got a ring passed down from our dad, that means he can come back from a supernatural death.”

The group went quiet, each caught up in their own moment of personal horror as they recalled the night of the ritual. The ritual which had left evidence so vile that it had caught the attention of MACUSA, and begun this whole mission. Harry began to appreciate why, although he was regarded a little as an outcast, Damon was no longer the main villain in their lives. Fear of a council that could turn father against daughter, or an Original hybrid (and Merlin was  _ that _ going to need an insane amount of research) had downgraded Damon’s villain status to mere nuisance. Harry’s head ached at the thought of writing his first report for Zach.

“Maybe we can leave it there for tonight,” Harry suggested, noting that the bottle of firewhisky was now empty. Elena nodded gratefully.

“Soooooo … beer pong?” Offered Caroline, bouncing over to the table she had set up on their arrival. Her enthusiasm broke the melancholy spell that had fallen over them, and Tyler lept after her.

Harry watched the fierce battle between vampire and werewolf, cheering on Caroline in solidarity with his first Mystic Falls friend, and laughing as the two descended further into drunkenness.

“Come on then, pretty boy, fancy a match?” Damon grinned challengingly at Harry, whose smile faltered.

“I don’t know…”

“Why? Scared?”

And fuck if that wasn’t the magic phrase to get Harry’s blood boiling.

“You wish” he fired back, snatching up the ping pong ball and taking his place at one end of the table.

Damon’s aim was utterly lethal, but Harry wasn’t the youngest seeker in a hundred years for no reason. It took an embarrassingly long time before the young wizard realised that, for all the bourbon Damon was drinking in the place of beer, he was still annoyingly upright.

“One hundred and seventy years of practice,” he smirked once Harry had slurred out his complaint.

“Ugh, stupid sexy vampire,” pouted Harry, flopping back onto the sofa dramatically.

“Sexy? Oh darling, do sweet talk me more,” teased Damon, perching next to him. Harry pushed at him ineffectually.

“Come back when I’m sober, I have literally no chat but at least I’m fit,” he laughed, alcohol loosening his lips, before closing his eyes against the spinning of the room. He lay listening to the sounds of laughter, of some questionable pop rock tunes someone had lined up for the stereo, and imagined he could feel Damon running his hands through his unruly hair.

“I’ll come back when you’re sober, Harry,” the vampire whispered, his fingers stark against raven locks as the wizard was lulled into an alcohol-infused sleep.

  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Damon woke up to the suffocating feeling of choking, and a mouthful of cotton wool.

Maybe not cotton wool, maybe a mop of unruly dark hair from where he found himself wound around one Harry Potter on their sofa. Maybe he was spluttering and retching, with his tongue sticking out to try to rid his mouth of the obtrusion. Maybe he shocked the wizard awake with his theatrical protestations, and having given him a wide-eyed look much like a doe in headlights, Harry disappeared with an overly loud _crack_ for just how tender Damon was feeling that morning.

"Fuck," he groaned, rolling his forehead in the palm of his hand before propelling himself up in search of a blood bag or coffee. Or a fresh donor who had already sipped their morning cup.

"Morning."

Alaric was grinning at him from next to the coffee machine. Why was Alaric still alive? Damon never could remember.

"Piss off. Pour me a cup." Damon demanded.

Alaric raised one eyebrow at him.

"What is it then, piss off? Or pour you a cup?"

Damon scowled, before motioning to the coffee machine. Alaric grinned at him in a manner which suggested the delicate human was the predator, and Damon the mere prey.

"What a beautiful scene I woke up to, two young love birds tangled around one another in the innocence of sleep," Alaric sing-songed.

"Ugh, I will eat you."

"Don't know why you'd react like that, I was obviously talking about Caroline and Tyler.

The two teens took that moment to wander into the kitchen, both looking incredibly sheepish. Tyler poured Caroline a cup of coffee, and offered to fetch her a blood bag from the basement cooler.

"Get me one too," Damon demanded; Caroline rolled her eyes and nodded at the young werewolf.

"Where's Harry?" Caroline questioned, collapsing over her elbows onto the kitchen island, fingers clasped tightly around her mug of strong coffee, looking for all the world like she belonged in the boarding house. Damon shrugged.

"Disappeared. Loud." Was all he offered.

Caroline, annoyingly, nodded like she expected this.

"Apparated, I guess. He mentioned that yesterday."

Damon filed yet another term away for later, determined to spend some serious time either in a library, or in the company of some - well, not friendly, maybe at least tolerant witches? He snorted to himself at that train of thought. Who had ever heard of a tolerant witch. He had better go with a bargaining chip.

"Care! Why did I let you talk us into this?"

Bonnie staggered into the kitchen looking for all intents and purposes like the undead, fingers pressed to her temples.

"Not all of us have impressive vampire healing," she whined, fixing her blonde friend with a withering glare. Caroline winced sympathetically before stretching out her wrist.

"Vampire blood in your morning coffee?" She suggested, laughing when Bonnie mimed being sick. At that moment, Elena skipped downstairs to join the group, a smug looking Stefan trailing behind her.

"Good night, little brother?" Damon teased, instantly transforming Stefan's pleased expression into a scowl. He steered away from any introspection as to whether that was the aim, or whether he was targeting some lighthearted brotherly ribbing and had simply missed.

Elena gave Damon a dirty look before looping her arm with Bonnie's and calling goodbye to the others, off to get ready before the school day. Tyler returned with blood bags for the resident vampires, and Caroline waved her goodbyes as she sipped on her bag like a Capri-Sun, skipping out into the morning sunshine.

Stefan regarded his brother carefully.

"What are you plotting?" He demanded.

Damon held his hand up to his chest, miming exaggerated wounding.

"Plotting? Me?" He swooned until Alaric's unimpressed rolling of his eyes brought him up short. "Ugh, fine. I'm going to see a witch about a witch. Problem?" He challenged.

"No, want company?"

Damon tried hard not to double-take at his brother's offer. It wasn't like they had many moments of family bonding nowadays.

"Road trip with my baby brother? Little Stefan skipping school? My my, what a rebel."

Alaric pushed himself up from where he had been leaning casually against the kitchen cabinets and clapped Stefan on the shoulder on his way out.

"I'll get Caroline to compel the administrator. See you later." He waved a lazy salute and headed out, leaving the two Salvatore brothers regarding each other warily across the kitchen island.

"So why are you so obsessed with Harry?" Stefan questioned.

"I've got a crush, obviously," came the flippant reply. Stefan narrowed his eyes as Damon casually examined his finger nails.

"Come off it, you've been obsessed with Katherine for however long, and with Elena since you met her."

Damon scowled at the mention of his duplicitous sire.

"People can change."

"You people? I'll believe it when I see it."

"Good job you're spending the day with me then, little brother." Damon's grin looked more like a threatening baring of his teeth. "I'll get the car, meet you out front after your morning bunny smoothie."

* * *

Damon figured if they were going to make a day of this, they may as well have fun. He zipped them out of town in the convertible, roof down, rock music blasting at a volume that would have small town mothers everywhere clutching their pearls. Classic. Even Stefan seemed to have taken the stick out of his butt enough to enjoy the moment, wind ruffling through his hair as he leaned back, sunglasses on.

"Remember the 70s, Stefan?" Damon asked, as the opening riff of Layla rang out from the speakers. He steered the car with his knees while he mimed epic guitar talent, vindicated when he saw a smile tug at one corner of Stefan's mouth.

"Do I remember you terrorising New York City and almost murdering Lexi? Yes, Damon, I remember."

"Oh come on, Stefan. She was _annoying_. You gotta admit she can be a little sanctimonious."

Stefan huffed a laugh.

"That sanctimonious streak saved my life, I'll forgive her for it."

"I wasn't nearly as bad as you, _Ripper_. I was having _fun_! I get it's not a word you're too familiar with but come on, for those of us who can actually control ourselves, the only thing better than Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll is Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, all tied up with fresh human blood."

He smacked his lips obscenely, taking a moment to relive his favourite memories of drug-fuelled hook ups in the corners of dark bars, sneaking bites, delivering pleasure, all to the tune of the dirty strike of an electric guitar. Stefan snorted at him.

"I wonder how your new crush would feel about your lifestyle back then," he teased, leaving himself wide open for Damon's rebuttal.

"I don't think he'd complain, can't get as good as I am without plenty of experience," he said, with a lascivious waggle of his eyebrows. Stefan groaned.

"Ugh. No matter what, it never gets more comfortable hearing your older brother talk like that."

Damon softened for a moment, eyes glued to the road, hands safely back on the wheel. Thought about what a normal older brother might do.

"Prude," he said, and both brothers laughed.

"Where are we actually going, Damon?"

"Oh that. Did you bring a change of clothes? We probably want to stop off overnight, it's a long way to Chicago and back in a day."

Stefan rolled his eyes and tipped his head back against the headrest. Of course it was. He fired a quick text to Elena to not expect him back that day, and reached for the stereo to find their next song. Maybe something a little more this century, and away from their murky past.

* * *

By the time the duo pulled up outside Gloria's, dusk was fading to night, and the party was in full swing. The decor was every bit as dark and sensual as the moody night sky outside, undulating bodies moved to the beat of a jazz guitar, feet sticky on the floor already. Damon's eyes skipped over the other patrons, and immediately honed in on a striking black woman whose eyes were already fixed on him from behind the bar. He leaned over the smooth wood, hand outstretched.

"Damon," he offered politely: no second chance at a first impression, after all.

The bartender snorted, stroking her long fingers against his palm and leaning across the bar.

"I know who you are, Salvatore," was her only response.

Damon regarded her carefully, noticing her tense as Stefan meandered through the crowd to join him at the bar. His little brother was looking intently around the room, brow creased. When his eyes landed on the woman, he jumped a little, but his eyes did not spark with recognition.

"Have I been here before?" The younger Salvatore questioned her.

Faster than a blink of an eye, so fast Damon might not have caught it if it wasn't for extra-human abilities, the bartender summoned two empty tumblers across the bar, the glasses skittering to a stop in front of her. She reached under the bar for a bottle of bourbon and placed the full bottle and both glasses in front of the vampires in front of her. Damon was careful not to let his awe at the casual magic show on his face - so this was his witch, and apparently she had been expecting them.

"If you cause half as much mess for me to clean up as you did last time, I will personally tear you limb from limb, vampire," she said to Stefan. There was no heat to her words, but even in their flat delivery, both Salvatores could feel the promise settle over them like a chill down their spines. Stefan nodded, eyes wide, and reached for a glass.

The witch's eyes immediately slid from Stefan back to Damon, and maybe it was Damon's imagination, but he thought her expression softened a little.

"Gloria," she offered, and uncorked the bourbon with a satisfying _pop_ , filling his tumbler generously.

"And aren't you just gorgeous, Gloria," Damon simpered, taking his first swig of the drink and humming in contentment. Not the cheap stuff.

"Gorgeous, and older than you," she said with a wicked grin. "Why don't we cut to the chase, darling. You may be cute, but you're still a vampire."

She leaned in closely, and tipped the bourbon into her mouth directly from the bottle.

"Why are you here, Damon Salvatore? It's a long way from Virginia."

"If I said the letters MACUSA to you, would they mean anything?"

Gloria sighed and nodded her head sharply once, looking resigned.

"They might do, yes."

"I've heard of you," Damon pressed. "Powerful witch, impressive range of magic, the one witch who might even keep an Original in check. You went to Salem Institute?"

Gloria closed her eyes, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Again she nodded, and again she took a pull of bourbon from the bottle.

"Why are you here, Damon?" She asked again.

"Does the name Harry Potter mean anything to you?"

"Scrawny kid, black hair, lightning scar slicing up his forehead? Why would you know that name?" She asked, eyes narrowed. Damon shrugged at her, and turned his focus back to the bottom of his glass. Gloria sighed, and topped him up.

"'Saviour of Witches' they were calling him, the whispers traveled across the ocean. Not many here that care about that name, but then Americans never do look too far outside of their own country," she said, derisively. "Plenty in the UK that want him back though." She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. "Saviour...disgusting. Child soldier, if you ask me. An whole society lumped him with taking down a magically powerful madman, all of his followers, and an entire corrupt government institution, all on the word of some drunken quack. Kid deserves a break."

She regarded Damon sharply.

"I hope you're giving him one, don't pull him into any of your crazy shit, Damon Salvatore."

Damon pressed his hand to his heart with wide eyes, the perfect depiction of ' _who, me?_ ' that made both Stefan and Gloria laugh. He huffed.

"He turned up in _my_ neck of the woods, I didn't ask him over," he complained. Gloria smiled at him.

Damon spun his tumbler in his hands once he had emptied it again, trying to put into words the painful hope that had been clawing up his throat ever since Harry's lesson in Alaric's dingy classroom. He looked up when Gloria again reached underneath the bar, this time pushing a newspaper across to the vampires in front of her.

"Have another glass before you look down," she instructed, and Damon gulped another full glass hastily. "I had a feeling you might be needing that. Something told me I would need to keep this edition, I reckon it's a message you need to see."

Damon took the paper in shaking hands. He barely registered the moving pictures, his eyes were so focussed on the headline in front of him.

' **No-Majes Torture Innocent Magical Being For Half A Century: Dramatic Rescue By Aurors.'**

The headline was accompanied by a short, scandalous article, talking about non-magical discovery of the magical world. How they were right to keep their societies separate, because of the disgusting atrocities committed by these no-maj 'scientists'. That there was evidence of decades worth of abuse of multiple magical victims, but that Auror teams had only retrieved one survivor. That the magical community was calling for retribution, and the small number of captured no-majes would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Damon kept his eyes carefully to the text, taking in every detail, before he allowed them to drift over to the accompanying picture. There, in black and white, a horrifyingly familiar face was staggering from a cold and clinical building, supported on either side by two men in impressive calf-length robes.

"Not particularly practical, those dressing gowns they're calling uniform," he joked, teeth chattering and words wobbling even as he said them. He reached out to pick up his glass, and Gloria put down a replacement just as he gripped the glass so hard that it shattered. He winced, pulling a few shards from the palm of his hand, and muttering a quick ' _sorry_ ', eyes fixed to his skin as it knitted together.

"Who's that, Damon?" Stefan asked, leaning into his brothers' space to get a better look at what had made Damon so upset.

"Enzo," Damon choked out. "I was...I was…" he trailed off, and Stefan looked back down at the article before looking up at his brother in alarm.

"How long?"

Damon closed his eyes against the onslaught of memories.

"Years. Years… it was the 50s. He'd already been there a decade. They used to...they used to experiment on the extent of vampire healing abilities. Could you regrow your liver. Could you survive open heart surgery with no anaesthetic," he broke off with a shudder, Stefan's eyes the size of dinner plates. "We made a plan, years in the making, but it went wrong and I couldn't get him out. And there was a fire, and he was in a cage but I was free, and I couldn't break the bars, I couldn't even bend them. And I…"

"You flipped your switch," he brother breathed. Damon shrugged.

"I flipped my switch."

"How long?"

Damon remained silent.

"All that time?" Stefan demanded. "So what, you flipped it back for Elena after half a century of rampaging?"

"No, I flipped it back for you."

Damon turned away from his brother as Stefan sat in silence, looking from Damon to the paper and back again, looking for everything as if his whole world had both fallen into place and fallen apart at the same time.

"So this MACUSA," Damon said to Gloria, who had left them to their moment to serve some customers, and had appeared again with frightening accuracy the moment Damon needed her. "Any idea how long they knew about the Augustine society?"

"Oh no, Damon, I'm not getting in the middle of a grudge between you and the most powerful magical institution in America," she said, shaking her head firmly. "I'm far too old for that shit."

"Come on, really? Not even if I told you what I know about Klaus breaking the Sun and the Moon curse? He hasn't done it properly, I can only imagine he'll be here soon enough asking you to make yourself useful."

Stefan bared his teeth at Damon, hissing in the back of his throat. Damon deliberately kept his eyes away from his brother, gripping his knee tightly under the bar. Gloria regarded him with narrowed eyes.

"That's two loads of trouble you've lumped at my door, Salvatore. I ought to throw you out on your ass," she spat, and Damon grinned, knowing he had come with the right bargaining chip.

"A fair exchange," he suggested. "A tidbit for a tidbit, and I'll even go first. Klaus came to mystic falls, it was a regular family reunion with his brother Elijah."

"Last I heard, Elijah wanted to kill Klaus."

Damon tipped his head in acknowledgement.

"So my first tidbit, Elijah and Klaus are reconciled, and travelling together, here in America."

Gloria's jaw worked furiously as she ground her teeth, and she snatched up the bottle of bourbon for a long pull.

"Fine. You're paying for the bottle now," she hissed. "If you want to know what MACUSA knew about the Augustine society, you should talk to your Harry Potter. I assume he's over here with the Aurors? Find out who his squad leader is."

Damon shook his head disappointedly.

"I got that from the article, it's not really privileged information, is it?"

"The law that recognised vampires as human-adjacent was only passed in the mid 1900s, vampires are second-class citizens as far as MACUSA is concerned. Hell, the law is even called ' _Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans_ '," she offered, disgust lacing her tone. "It wouldn't be unusual for a wizarding government body to turn a blind eye to crimes against what they view as sub-human beings."

The three all paused to reflect on this, quietly seething into their drinks.

"Why are you so mad about it?" Stefan questioned Gloria. "Surely this is your government."

Gloria spat at the floor at her feet.

"Notice I said a _wizarding_ government body - damn organisation can't even accept their roots and heritage. No respect for magic, no attempts to give back to the land, no nurturing of the magic infused in the very nature around them. Selfish or ignorant, the lot of them," she raged, taking Stefan aback. "They wouldn't know how to truly respect a witches' natural magic if it hit them in the face. I hear even your Harry had to undergo serious training in New Orleans, and he seems to be one of magic's favoured ones."

She refused to acknowledge Damon's eyebrow raised in question at that assertion, instead waving to him.

"That was enough _tidbits_ from me, cough up."

"Fair. Klaus sacrificed his vampire, werewolf, doppelgänger. He can now change at will into a werewolf, a true hybrid. But he can't make any more. A guy with mommy issues like that, I can only imagine he's out trying to create his own pack."

Gloria's skin paled as Damon continued talking. He paused here, no intention to continue.

"You need to look at the Gilberts," Gloria said desperately. "In Mystic Falls, and in the Aurors."

"There's a Gilbert in the Aurors?"

Gloria nodded sharply.

"Related to Elena Gilbert?"

"No idea who that is."

"And the Pierce line?"

"Katharine? Had a daughter taken from her before she was turned."

The two vampires stared at her, stunned.

"So go on then, what do I need to know that might stop an irate Original Hybrid killing me?"

Damon gripped Stefan's knee fiercely.

"The doppelgänger didn't die, I don't think the curse is fully broken."

"Is this a joke? That's the best case scenario for -"

Gloria cut off abruptly as she looked up at the doorway, straight into the yellow eyes of the werewolf, vampire hybrid. Damon took one look over his shoulder and hoisted Stefan up from his bar stool by the back of his jacket.

"Time to go! Klaus! Fancy seeing you here, we're visiting on totally unrelated business, see you later," he all but shrieked, yanking Stefan out of the bar at break-neck speed. If it wasn't for the single-minded focus the hybrid had on the witch in front of him, Damon had no doubt he would have hauled them back inside. As it was, the hybrid was wild eyed, distraught, and staggering towards his witch like she held his only lifeline.

Damon shoved Stefan into the car and vaulted into the driver's seat, pulling away with a screech of tires on asphalt. Stefan punched the dashboard in front of him before turning and punching Damon.

"What the fuck, Damon! You sold out Elena? And for what, petty revenge?"

Damon kept his eyes glued to the road but fished his phone from his pocket and tossed it at his brother.

"Tell Alaric to get Elena over to Harry's house. Caroline knows where it is. Klaus hasn't been invited in there, no one has except Caroline. Tell Harry the situation, get him to call his Auror buddies."

Stefan dialled the phone furiously, barking the instructions to Alaric, and Damon could hear the expletives being hurled his way from the other end of the line.

"I know, _I know!_ " Stefan raged, before ending the call with a stab.

Damon checked the rear view mirror, and did not take his foot off the gas.

"You know the most petty creature in the world?" He asked his younger brother.

"You, apparently?"

"A witch who has been wronged. Imagine just how petty the Original witch could be," he said, pushing his foot harder to the gas pedal and flying through a red light.

"Stop fucking about, Damon. What are you trying to tell me?"

"Wouldn't it be perfect irony if Klaus, having to sacrifice three beings to the point of them being truly, properly dead, could only turn his new werewolves into vampires using the blood of one of those beings? Blood that had been thoroughly spilled. Even if he had a werewolf pack right there with him, and lets face it, he had other things on his mind, there'd still be a finite amount if he killed them immediately after breaking the curse. Imagine being the only creature of your kind, eternal, and doomed to spend that eternity alone."

Stefan stilled in his seat and considered Damon's words.

"He couldn't use the vampire blood, and what's so special about the werewolf? What's the one part of that equation that there is only one of?"

"The doppelgänger," Stefan breathed.

"The doppelgänger," Damon agreed. "It's in Klaus' express interest to keep Elena alive, I just need Gloria to relay that message."

"So you have once again taken a decision about Elena's life without consulting her, you've dragged her into the middle of all this and put her life in the control of a psycho."

"Maybe if I had done this without Harry here," Damon allowed. "One look at that kid, and you know he'll do anything to keep innocents around him safe. It's written in the lines across his face. You heard Elena, she wants Klaus prosecuted. And you heard Gloria, Klaus is a part-human. Who do you think this MACUSA is going to be more motivated to help, part-human, or our stunningly fully human magical being?"

The car was silent for a while, the only sound the whine of the engine as the two continued to fly down the highway. From the phone in Stefan's hand, a tinny voice rang out.

"Thanks, Damon."

Damon looked down in shock, realising that Stefan had never ended the call after all, instead he had jabbed the speaker button.

"You could go to school, and to college, without looking over your shoulder," he pleaded to the phone.

"I get it. I wish you had _asked_ me, but I also get that I was a convenient bargaining chip for you."

Her voice rang with disappointment and resignation.

"We're on our way to Harry's now, hurry back."

The drive to Virginia had never seemed so long.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry sat in the dim light of his kitchen, scratching out his notes onto parchment using his quill and inkwell. He erased and rewrote notes, determined that every word would be perfectly legible, holding himself to a punishing standard. If Healer Ryle was here, punishment is exactly what he would call it.

Harry had spent the whole day in a miserable self-critical spiral. He was pretty sure ' _first major international assignment_ ' did not translate to ' _get distracted by flirting with local bad boy vampire_ ' no matter what linguistic changes he had already noted since his crossing the Atlantic. So why did he let himself get so caught up in the challenge he'd seen in Damon's eyes last night. Why did he wake up safe in the vampire's arms, well past his usual early nightmare wake up call. He gripped his quill so tightly the stem snapped, digging into his hand and causing him to hiss in pain.

An urgent knocking came from the front door, despite the late hour.

"I don't need any more cheering up, Caroline!" He called, sucking on his injured finger as he headed to let in the peppy blonde who had spent the day lecturing Harry on why Damon was ' _no good'_ and absolutely should ' _not be trusted'_ with something as precious as Harry's delicate human heart.

When he swung open the pretty painted door, he was indeed met with Caroline, but she was looking sheepish and accompanied by an irate looking Alaric, and a tearful Elena.

"Can we come in?" Caroline asked softly, and ushered Elena over the threshold before Harry had even finished his nod.

Harry took in the group now being somewhat swallowed by his overly soft sofa cushions, and tried to think what Mrs Weasley might do in such a situation.

"Shall I make us all a cup of tea?" He asked, helplessly. This at least encouraged a little smile out of Elena, who instead asked "do you by any chance have any cocoa?"

Cocoa, he could do. Comforting crying girls, history had shown he was decidedly bad at. He hurried from the room lest he do something stupid, like try to kiss her. From the back of his mind floated up Hermione's voice ' _honestly, you have the emotional range of a teaspoon_ ' and he smiled to himself as he set about the methodical task of preparing hot drinks for everyone.

Harry floated the tray of drinks behind him into the living room, and passed each mug off, making sure everyone was settled before he started his questioning.

"So, not that you aren't all obviously welcome any time, but what exactly brings you here tonight?"

Alaric and Caroline both looked to Elena, who took a gulp of her cocoa as if it was every bit as fortifying as the firewhisky from their previous night.

"Damon and Stefan drove to Chicago today, to visit a witch."

Harry blinked.

"I'll admit, I'm not great at US geography, but isn't that a really fucking long way away?" He blurted out. Elena smiled ruefully.

"Welcome to the logic of Damon Salvatore," she said, and Caroline leaned back out of Elena's eyesight to mouth ' _I told you so_ ' at Harry. Harry refrained from sticking his tongue out at her, because he was mature. And because Elena was looking at him with those big, sad doe eyes. He motioned for her to continue.

"Apparently Damon knew the vampire you mentioned had been rescued by MACUSA recently - Damon was in captivity with him back in the 50s, and he wanted more details from someone he felt he could trust."

"And he can't trust me," Harry stated, feeling his stomach sink.

"Can't really corroborate information from the person you heard it from, in fairness," Alaric interjected. Harry nodded, but the sinking feeling didn't lift.

"Sounds like they heard there's a bit more to the story than meets the eye, so Damon bargained information out of the witch. She's a witch that Klaus knows. Damon told her that Klaus' breaking of the Sun and the Moon curse is incomplete, because he didn't kill me like he thinks he did."

Harry felt his jaw drop a little. Damon had seemed like a reckless character, but his protection of Elena had even bordered on a near forcible transition to eternal life; this seemed both very on brand and completely out of character.

"Klaus turned up, and they left. They're on their way back. Damon told us to come to your house, because Klaus hasn't been invited inside, and maybe you could call back up. Do you really think there's a way of dealing with Klaus that doesn't involve us figuring it out ourselves?"

Elena looked at Harry with such naked hope that Harry found himself dropping his gaze and instead staring down into his tea. He took a fortifying breath, and excused himself from the room to go and call Zach on their emergency line.

Before he could make the call, his personal phone lit up with an international number he hadn't yet saved.

"Hello?"

"Harry," came Damon's voice from the other end of the line, faint against the background of a roaring engine. "Change of plan, don't call in any help from your government yet."

"Why not?" Harry demanded, sharply. "If I have intelligence that a dangerous magical being is heading to Mystic Falls with nefarious intentions, it's my duty- "

"Please, Harry. Please."

Harry paused at the desperate edge to Damon's voice.

"Look, you obviously don't trust me enough to share concerns and ask questions. I'll find another Auror who you feel more comfortable with and- "

" _Harry_. Fuck, I- I didn't mean to make you feel like that, ok? I'm sorry. Please, please can you sit on this, just until we get back to Mystic Falls. We'll come straight to your house and tell you everything. Trust me, Harry. I know you don't have any reason to, but I'm asking you to trust me."

Harry clenched his fist so hard he opened the wound from the quill back up, and he swore softly.

"Fine. You have until sunrise, and then I'm calling my partner," he said finally, hanging up the call with a viscous stab at his screen that wasn't nearly as cathartic as he hoped it would be. Why was he already messing all of this up? He'd told them too much, he'd let his professional guard down instantly, and now the issue of the Town Council seemed a drop in the ocean compared to a potential siege on a vulnerable town.

"Hey," came a soft voice behind him. Harry whirled around to see Caroline stood in the doorway. "Did I just hear Damon Salvatore apologise?"

Harry nodded, and Caroline's face fell.

"I don't know what's going on, but it's got to be something really serious. Are you really going to wait?"

"He's got a sunrise deadline. Klaus can't come into the house, so I hope you've all bought a change of clothes and a toothbrush. I've got some spare beds if you feel up to getting some kip, and some towels and blankets…" he trailed off when he noticed dark veins appear under Caroline's eyes. "Er, Caroline? Are you ok?"

"Have you cut yourself?" She asked, taking a hurried step backwards. Harry looked down at his hand and cursed himself for being so stupid. He grabbed his wand and closed the wound quickly.

"Merlin, Care, I'm so sorry," he said, rushing to the kitchen cupboards. After a moment's frantic search, he closed his hand over a Blood Pop, and quickly launched it across the room to the struggling vampire. Caroline snatched it out of the air and had it unwrapped and in her mouth before Harry could blink. She closed her eyes in contentment, and the dark veins faded.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding upset. "It's all still a bit new, and it's _really_ difficult." She sniffled, and crunched on the lollipop. "God, what is this? It's completely satisfying the cravings, but it tastes like candy and nostalgia."

"It's a Blood Pop - there's actually plenty of mainstream food items for vampires in my world, perks of being known I guess. Sorry I don't have any blood bags in, I didn't really think I'd be having overnight guests already."

Caroline laughed at him.

"Girls over already, I hope you know your neighbours will have told everyone by morning," she ribbed, elbowing Harry in the side.

"Ugh, small towns," he lamented. "Come on, let's get you and Elena settled in a guest room, she looks like she could do with a bit of girl time."

* * *

Once Harry had settled the two girls into his guest room, throwing Caroline a bottle of black sparkly nail polish that he'd fished out from his bathroom cabinet and making the two of them laugh, he flopped down onto an armchair and dropped his head into his hands.

"Go on then kid, what's bugging you," Alaric said, leaning back into the sofa. Harry peeked at him through his fingers.

"I'm messing everything up."

Alaric regarding him carefully.

"How old are you?"

"19"

"And how long have you been in your job?"

"Uhm, a year I guess, though half of that was training, and a lot of the other half was desk duty."

"So even if it were true that you're messing everything up, which I'm not conceding by the way, what exactly is your issue?"

"I'm a working adult, and I'm shit at my job. Seems a pretty big issue," Harry dead panned.

"You gotta be perfect at everything the first time? What happened to learning?"

"I've done my training, this is the real world now. There's real lives at stake."

"Bullshit. That right there is exactly why you're showing your age. Harry, this is your first field assignment. With the best will in the world, you know nothing, and absolutely no one expects you to know anything."

Harry made an indignant noise, but Alaric held his hand up and shook his head.

"I don't mean you haven't taken on board your training, of course not. You seem bright, switched on. You taught yourself about American magical history and then taught all of us in less than a day, I think we can assume you've taken your training on board well."

"Right… I don't think I'm getting your point."

Alaric smirked at him, and Harry felt his temper flare.

"I'm glad this seems so funny to you," he snapped, annoyed that it seemed to not have the chastising effect he was aiming for. Could he do _nothing_ right at the moment?!

"OK, OK. Let me put it this way. I went to school to learn how to be a teacher, right? We went over lesson planning, syllabuses, teaching styles, how to engage a class, safeguarding. You can't just walk into a classroom and be an amazing teacher and have that be everything - you're responsible for the wellbeing of the students in the room with you. There is _nothing_ that prepares you for the first time you lose control of a class; the first time you spot signs of neglect in a child; the first time you try to intervene in bullying and actually end up making it worse; the first time you have a hurricane drill and you have to get twenty teenagers to hide under their desks. They could give us all the protocols in the world, and the vast majority of it goes straight out the window the moment you lock eyes with your first student who is _trusting you_ to get this right for them."

Harry held his breath as Alaric spoke, a small flicker of hope sputtering in his chest.

"Jobs like this, the on the job experience is the best training you're ever going to get. If I went back to meet the teacher I was when I started? Well for one I'd probably cringe myself to an early grave. The kids I've taught, the institutions I've worked in, they've changed me. I've learned from every interaction, and I carry on learning. Do you think it's OK that I'm still learning as I teach?"

Harry nodded minutely.

"Right. So why is it not OK for you to learn too?"

Harry blinked rapidly, hot tears building that he was steadfastly refusing to let fall in front of this well meaning and comforting stranger. He suddenly desperately missed Ron and Hermione, nights spent wrapped around each other on sofas as they tried to process the aftermath of the war. Ron would look at Harry with kind, sad eyes, and tell him that he was good enough, always, that mistakes were allowed and didn't take away from his worth. That he could kill ' _those bloody muggles_ ' and anyone who made Harry feel 'less-than'. Hermione would make a point of telling him every time she made a proposal that was logically refuted - ' _remember S.P.E.W, Harry? I didn't even ask the elves for their opinions, I didn't even reconsider the acronym!_ '

Alaric, to his credit, looked away while Harry sat ruminating on his words, breaking the silence only to offer up gently,

"I know it would be easier to confirm this with your partner right now, but learning and growing in this environment is exactly what they need from you. There's a reason they've sent a teenager in to do this job. There's a reason you've got those girls upstairs comfortable enough with you already to tell you about the horrors they've been through recently, and to still trust you enough to sleep in your house. You're doing fine, Harry, and I'll deck Damon for making you feel differently. Now, don't ever make me do this again unless I've got a whisky in my hand or I'm on the clock."

Harry laughed, and the two men sat in a comfortable silence, watching the sky fade from pitch black to dusty blue as the night wore on.

* * *

Harry was jerked from a restless sleep by a harried knocking on the door. He stood and stretched, back protesting the second night spent on a sofa, ambling over leisurely to put the arriving vampires out of their misery.

"I'm not letting you in," were the first words out of his mouth as he swung open the door. Damon's jaw dropped, and he kicked the door jamb in frustration.

"Why? You want to have this conversation out in the street?"

Harry regarded him coolly.

"Klaus can compel vampires, yes? How do I know you haven't been compelled to take Elena once you've been granted access. From now on, this house has safe house protocols."

He folded his arms against his chest, standing tall to fill the doorway. Damon regarded him through narrowed eyes - when Gloria referred to Harry as _scrawny_ her intel was clearly out of date.

"That's fine, what protocols?" Stefan interjected into the standoff between the two dark-haired magicals, keen to get inside to Elena as soon as possible.

"You need to let me into your minds, to check for compulsion."

Damon spluttered beside him.

"Mind-reading? Are you serious?!" He protested loudly, but Stefan stepped in front of him and held Harry's gaze. Harry nodded at him approvingly.

"Think about your desire to get into the house," Harry said, before pointing his wand at Stefan. " _Legilimens_."

Stefan's jaw went slack as Harry rifled through the thoughts and memories that his prompt had brought to the front of the vampire's mind. There was no tell-tale hazy edge or unexplained skips that would indicate compulsion. Harry stepped to the side.

"Stefan, please come in. She's upstairs with Caroline," he added, and the vampire zipped past him at full speed in search of the guest room.

Harry refolded his arms and raised an eyebrow at Damon.

"Are you going to cooperate, or are you going to spend the rest of the time until your sunrise countdown on my front porch?"

Damon glared at him, eyes projecting every sincere feeling of malice that they could, before he ground his teeth and nodded sharply.

"Eyes to mine then, good boy. _Legilimens_."

Harry was unprepared for the sheer desperation that hit him like a train on entering Damon's mind. The supposedly uncaring vampire maintained an argumentative exterior, keeping everyone at arm's length, but the depth of his longing and anxiety had Harry floored. Guilt, guilt so bottomless it felt like it could match only Harry's own every time he thought about the people who died while he delayed delivering himself to Voldemort, but Damon's guilt centred around one man, screaming in a cage as flames flickered around him. Disbelief that this man could still be alive, longing at being reunited; at finally having someone in his life who _understood_ him, truly, and accepted him. A roiling anger at the sense of betrayal. That there had been some form of protective organisation who could have intervened. A hunger to know just when they had discovered his captors.

" _Think about getting into the house, Damon_."

Elena's wide doe eyes, and his brother, his brother finally _happy_ and it was all because of this girl. More guilt, guilt at Caroline's turning, at the way he had treated her while she was human, the need to apologise too great to put into words, he needed to act it out by ensuring her safety instead. Alaric, far too human and fragile to be put in the way of Klaus - just how many times would that ring work, anyway? And Harry, god _damn_ but the guy was fit. Those green eyes, that defiant spark, those wide shoulders… _good boy_...

Harry pulled himself from Damon's mind with a gasp and admitted him over the threshold quickly, cheeks burning at the last set of thoughts. Damon, instead of showing any embarrassment, pressed himself far too close to Harry to be necessary to walk through the small doorway, and gave Harry a sinful wink that caused a window pane in the door to shatter with a conspicuous _crack_.

"Sorry, sorry," Harry muttered, waving his wand to fix the glass as Elena thundered down the stairs in panic. He turned to usher the group back into the living room, determined not to meet Damon's eyes for a while. "There's no compulsion from Klaus that I can find, but for anyone not on vervain I'll need to check regularly if this can't be resolved before we need to leave the house."

The assembled vampires all nodded in agreement, and Harry noticed Elena reach to touch her necklace as if to reassure herself it was still there.

"Sun's coming up, I suggest you start talking, Salvatores."

* * *

After Damon and Stefan had been thoroughly interrogated, Harry excused himself to the kitchen to sit with his thoughts. He made himself a cup of tea on autopilot, reaching for the pack of biscuits and immediately submerging one.

Was there a single trustworthy magical government out there? Actually, thinking on that, he wasn't sure there were many governments, magical or non-magical, that he would trust completely. But to have taken the responsibility for an entire _war_ on his shoulders, to have fought a corrupt ministry at every turn, for Hermione to still ring him in frustrated tears as she tried to work her way in to implement reforms. And here he finds he might have just jumped from the frying pan straight into the fire.

He dunked another biscuit slowly, munching on the warm, soggy crumbs as he calmed himself.

What was the significance to a Gilbert in the Aurors? Potentially very significant to his case, if nothing else. The Gilberts were founding members of the council, their roles passed down the generations. If the Gilbert's were not the source of the original Scourer, they certainly would have benefitted from the Scourer's knowledge.

And if the Gilbert in the Aurors was related, how much did they know about the case Harry was assigned to? Were they included in the protection jinxes Zach had cast? Was Zach involved in the conspiracy? Covering up abuse of vampiric magical beings by no-majes would certainly align with a Scourer's objectives, particularly one associated with a Council specifically designed to stand against vampires. Then again, it could be something as simple as someone profiting off the research the society produced, or even an incompetent government who truly had no idea of the abuse until recently.

Harry flinched as his mind threw a grating ' _hem, hem!_ ' at him, and he considered the implicit sponsorship of the British Ministry of bodily harm to school children in order to get their own way. Maybe he was jaded, but he was inclined to write off incompetence. His Auror training would tell him to keep all theories open until proven otherwise.

Harry sighed, and pulled a fresh sheet of parchment towards himself, sketching out the various theories, who would benefit, and how they could be related. He stared at the parchment until the words began to blur, at which point he hastily gulped down his now luke-warm tea.

When Harry marched back into the living room, the low level muttering of the group stopped, and he was briefly disconcerted by all eyes turning to him, focussing on him as if waiting to hear a plan. He cleared his throat, and charmed the parchment to float next to him while he spoke so that everyone could see his thinking.

"OK, here are my main working theories. First, and Damon please restrain yourself here because _I know_ , is that MACUSA were simply unaware of the Augustine society, and that my work here is unrelated. No one wins, vampires lose up until now, assuming the society doesn't have other factions that MACUSA remains unaware of."

Damon snorted derisively.

"How many governments do you know that would miss out on a money-making opportunity," he scoffed, biting his lip when Harry fixed him with a quelling stare.

"Second, person or persons unknown were operating from inside MACUSA to keep the operation hidden, and were profiting from the research. The discovery of the Augustine society might be due to a leak, or more likely due to it benefitting the insiders more this way. Maybe the muggles thought their bargaining hand was too strong, or maybe they completed their research.

"Third, and these two aren't mutually exclusive, the insider in MACUSA is the very same Scourer that I am looking for here in your Town Council. They could encourage

The government to look the other way by providing a financial incentive, and they would benefit their work with the council through research on vampires specifically."

No one piped up as Harry laid out his last theories, stunned into silence.

"Why is it always Mystic Falls that gets caught up in these things?" Elena wondered out loud. "It's weird, right? We don't even have 10,000 residents."

"But you're on the confluence of some incredibly powerful leylines," Harry said. Noticing the blank stares, he elaborated. "Leylines are straight lines that can be drawn between areas of magical significance. They're said to channel magic through them. A meeting of leylines as significant as the ones under Mystic Falls calls magical beings to it; we sustain the leylines, and the leylines sustain us. Whoever controls Mystic Falls would have a powerful influence over magical America, whether they realise it or not."

"So any interaction between the Scourer and the government couldn't be ruled out at all," offered Stefan. "The leylines call a high population of vampires to the area, MACUSA and the Scourer could both benefit from vampire research, and the government would be motivated to maintain control of the area."

Harry snatched the parchment out of the air and scribbled Stefan's theory above a hastily drawn line between MACUSA and the Town Council. He stared at the mess of theories intently.

"It could just be a hell of a coincidence…" he said slowly. Damon appeared at his shoulder.

"But?" The vampire prompted.

"Well, as an old colleague would say, _constant vigilance._ We can't dismiss any theories, certainly not ones with such powerful motives."

He and Damon shared a grim look before Harry turned back to the wider group.

"The biggest immediate issue is the extent to which it will be necessary to involve MACUSA to solve the current threat. I don't know if Gloria's suggested Gilbert is involved in the Mystic Falls task force. However, we could reasonably assume that the capture of an Original vampire would be of great interest to any of the suggested parties so far. My suggestion is that we bring my partner Zach in, and we question him under the influence of a potion. If he turns out to be involved, I wipe his memory and we go it alone."

"Er, if you're the only one who knows the effects of the potion, it's a bit difficult for the rest of us to verify," Caroline murmured, shooting Harry an apologetic glance.

"Of course! That's why we should test it out on Damon first, so the rest of you can see the effects." He clapped Damon on the shoulder.

"Why me?!" Damon whined.

"Well you so kindly volunteered Elena as Original vampire bait, I thought you wouldn't mind volunteering yourself for Truth Potion testing," Harry said with a nasty grin. Damon turned a little green.

"Perfect!" Giggled Caroline. "Will your partner be up now?"

Harry checked his watch, it was definitely after 5am, so a more sociable hour for poor sleep-deprived Zach. He grabbed his emergency phone and dialled.

"Zach, I need you to apparate directly into my house as soon as you can, and bring a bottle of veritaserum and antidote."

Zach, to his credit, merely agreed, and hung up, appearing not ten minutes later and looking only mildly surprised at being greeted by a group of various young adults and teenagers.

"You work quick, kid," he said to Harry, passing over the bottle of veritaserum.

Harry motioned for Damon to sit down and stick out his tongue. The vampire was too nervous to even make the action suggestive, looking up at Harry with wide eyes. Harry let one drop of liquid fall onto the man's waiting tongue, and watched as the tell-tale glaze dropped over his eyes.

"What's your full name?"

"Damon Salvatore."

"And your birthday?"

"June 18, 1839."

"At what age were you turned?"

"24"

"And why did you agree to the transition?"

Damon's jaw worked as he tried to avoid answering the question.

"Initially because I was in love with Katharine Pierce, I thought turning would mean an eternity together. But then I thought she died so I refused to complete the transition."

Elena looked up, confused.

"You refused? So what happened?"

"Stefan forced me to drink human blood. I promised him an eternity of misery in return."

"This explains _so_ much," Caroline whispered, as Elena's head whipped to stare at her boyfriend in horror. Stefan had his eyes closed, brow knitted together.

Harry looked at Alaric.

"What's something harmless that Damon would normally lie about?"

The vampire hunter snorted.

"How tall are you, Damon?"

"Six… Five foot 9 and a half."

Alaric nodded at Harry, and he took the antidote from Zach and placed it on Damon's pliant tongue. The vampire's eyes cleared, and he glared up at Harry.

"Sorry," said Harry, sounding not very sorry at all. Turning to the rest of the group he asked, "are you all sufficiently convinced?"

"What was it like?" Elena asked Damon.

He shook his head at her.

"I couldn't lie even if I wanted to," he said, with a nasty look at Alaric. "It's like you're totally at peace with telling the truth, and it just trips straight off your tongue."

Elena nodded to Harry, and the rest of the group agreed. Harry turned to his partner.

"I hope you know I would never ask you this if it wasn't absolutely necessary," he reassured the man. Luckily, Zach seemed to have already expected this turn of events, and quietly swapped places with Damon. Harry was glad he didn't have to ask the help of a vampire to force his burly boss into compliance - he might have bulked out a little over Auror training, but Zach still towered over him. Zach met his eyes, trust and acceptance in his gaze, and nodded at Harry, sticking out his tongue. Harry waited for Zach's eyes to glaze over.

"Do you know an Auror with the surname Gilbert?"

"Not an Auror, but a lobbyist to the department. Jonathan Gilbert."

At the name, Elena gasped.

"Is Jonathan Gilbert privy to any knowledge of your Mystic Falls investigation?"

"No. I don't trust the slime ball as far as I could throw him. He's got too much influence for a squib, especially with how biased MACUSA is against them, he must have some friends in very high places."

Elena made a questioning noise in her throat, and Harry looked over to her. "A squib is someone of magical descent who no longer has any magical powers. Lots of Scourer descendants are squibs because magic cast them out. There should be a lot of mistrust of a squib in an organisation like MACUSA."

Elena nodded, eyes wide, and Harry turned back to Zach.

"If we knew of corruption within the Auror department, would you want to know?"

"Yes."

"And if we told you about our theories regarding corruption, do you swear that you will keep them secret?"

"Yes."

"Can the Mystic Falls Task Force be trusted with this information?"

Zach paused here for a moment.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I might need to narrow it down further."

"Have you got any friends of family that MACUSA could use against you, and do you have somewhere safe you can send them until this is over?"

"Yes, and yes."

Harry delivered the antidote, and Zach regarded him warily.

"Why add in the last questions?"

Harry shrugged.

"I'm sick of innocent people getting dragged into conflicts they should never have been a part of. This is going to get messy, fast. I'd do it alone if I thought I could, but history has taught me it's better to have a trusted team."

Zach nodded at him with a look that Harry had a sneaking suspicion was pride. The two Aurors shook hands, and Harry pulled the parchment from where he hand shrunk and hidden it in his back pocket.

"OK, here's what we have so far."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate the evil Alaric storyline, and let’s face it, Harry could use some good adult influences in his life. A teacher like Alaric would spot that.
> 
> I’d love it if you’d leave me a comment with how you’re feeling about it all!


	7. Chapter 7

Damon lay with his head back on Harry's soft, lemon sofa pillows, staring at the bare beams criss-crossing the ceiling above him. He drummed his fingers against his chest rhythmically, hoping the beat might also drum some sense into him, since clearly everyone around him thought he had lost his. What was it that made everyone so mad at him when he was only trying to help?

He let his eyes drift over to where Stefan was sitting on the sofa opposite. Elena's head was in his lap, her legs draped over Caroline. The two vampires were murmuring to each other whilst Elena slept safely encased by their bodies. Damon cleared his throat.

"Stefan, can I talk to you?"

Stefan glared at him across the room.

"Sharing your thoughts now, Damon? Feel free to share with the group."

Damon paused for a moment, feeling chastised. He tried not to let it show on his face; it would never do to let Stefan know his feelings could be hurt. He hauled himself upright and ran a hand through the windswept waves of his hair.

"OK… I was thinking, Harry's house isn't exactly large enough to be a safe house long term."

"I guess you should have considered that before you volunteered Harry's hospitality services for him," shot Stefan.

"Deserved," Damon nodded, looking over to where Harry and the enormous guy with the facial decoration were bent over some thick paper. "But I was thinking, what if the boarding house was owned by a human? Then it could act as a safe house, and there's a lot more rooms."

"Then I suppose that's one reason for you to feel remorseful about killing Zach, since moral significance seems to have no bearing on you."

The Auror with the southern drawl looked up sharply at Damon, and the vampire waved him off.

"Sure, yes, very sorry, rest in peace Zach, yada yada yada," he said hastily. "I was thinking more that we could sign ownership of the boarding house over to Elena. She could control who gets to come in, might make her feel safer." ' _Might go some way to apologising'_ was left unsaid, but Stefan's piercing stare told Damon it wasn't unheard anyway.

"And what, you're telling me you've already done it?"

"No, I'm asking you if you think it would be a good idea."

Stefan sank back into the pillows, suddenly looking exhausted, and ran his hand over his face.

"Fine by me, Damon. Ask her when she wakes up," he said, looking away from his brother and out the window to the sun drenched garden outside.

"Awwwwwkward," sang Caroline under her breath. Damon privately agreed.

The two plotting wizards took that moment to stand up, Zach clapping Harry on the shoulder before disappearing with that god awful _crack_. Stefan and Caroline slowly nudged Elena awake, whereas Damon simply slapped Ric on the back of the head to get him to perk up from where he'd been dozing into his mug of coffee.

Harry squared his shoulders as he turned to address the group.

"OK," he said, projecting clear authority in the tone of his voice and imposing posture. "Zach and I are in agreement that the critical mission here is still to identify the Scourer in the Town Council."

Damon immediately opened his mouth to protest, and Harry held up his hand.

"Shut up, Damon. The Scourer is most likely to be at the heart of both our issues: here in Mystic Falls, and within MACUSA. We don't know when to expect Klaus, and it isn't practical to keep Elena a prisoner of our own to avoid her being a prisoner of someone else."

Elena reached out to grasp Stefan's hand, knuckles white.

"So, we need to prepare for this to be a longer term mission. Elena, you wear vervain, yes?"

Elena nodded.

"And do we have enough to protect others even tangentially related to you?"

"Yes, we started doing that when Katharine was around. Most people have some form of jewellery that they wear."

Harry nodded approvingly.

"So, the first thing to do is establish a reason why you would be staying here. Do you and Stefan mind staging a break up? A whirlwind new romance might do it."

Damon found himself frowning at the idea of watching Harry and Elena cuddling up, even for pretence. He felt a tight curl of jealousy settle in the pit of his stomach. Before he could protest, Stefan piped up.

"Damon suggested, if Elena wants to, we could sign over ownership of the boarding house. There's more rooms, in case we need to keep more people safe. No one would question Elena at ours, it's not new behaviour."

Elena looked at Damon in shock, before turning to Stefan and throwing her arms around him, nodding where she buried her face against his chest. Harry breathed out a sigh of relief.

"OK, that sounds perfect, actually. I'll send an update to Zach." He scribbled an amendment onto his parchment. "The second thing I'll do is add a charm to your necklace - if you ever disappear, it will let me know exactly where you are. I'll also add a charm to it so that if you tap it three times, my watch will heat up and let me know you are in trouble. Would that be OK?"

Elena nodded happily, "Saves Bonnie trying to find me again, it really took it out of her last time."

Harry shook his head at the amount this set of teens had already been through.

"Last thing I need you to do is agree that you will stay either by my side, or at the boarding house, at all times. OK?" Elena nodded, but Harry spotted the hesitation in the movement. "Elena, even if you are told that someone else is in danger, I need you to trust me, and tell me instead of handling it yourself."

"But-"

"Please, Elena. This is only going to work if you trust me. Years ago, I ran to rescue someone I thought was in trouble, rather than waiting for others to verify the intel. I was overwhelmed, and the person I was trying to save was killed in the process. I know how important everyone in your life is to you, and I promise I will do everything in my physical and magical power to keep them safe, but I need you to keep yourself safe as part of that."

He held Elena's gaze for a long moment, naked earnestness painted across his features. Elena nodded slowly. "I promise."

"OK, hand me your necklace and I'll place the charms. For the vampires in the room, I'm thinking it might be a good idea for me to see if it's possible to teach you something called occlumency. It _might_ help protect you from Klaus' compulsion. If it does, we could use that to surprise him."

"No creepy Original mind control, fuck yeah!" Exclaimed Damon.

"Oh, and _now_ he realises the mind control is creepy," protested Caroline, shooting him a dirty glare. Damon opened his mouth to retort, thought better of it, and closed it again.

"He _does_ know how to shut up, colour me surprised," teased Harry, holding up Elena's necklace to the morning sunlight before tapping it with his wand and murmuring softly. When he handed the necklace back to Elena, Damon remembered that only part of the plan had been outlined.

"Where'd your buddy go?" He demanded, miming a bristling moustache by wiggling his fingers in front of his face. Harry snorted.

"He's gone to see who he can trust within the task force with our new information. And to see if he can whisper into the right ear that an Original vampire might be on the way to Mystic Falls - see how quickly we can get that back to Jonathan Gilbert."

"You know he's my uncle, right?" Said Elena, scrunching up her nose. "Total asshole. Jenna never liked him."

"I'm not a huge fan of my own uncle, either," Harry said with a rueful grin. He chivvied everyone into gathering their things and getting ready for the school day, running upstairs to brush his teeth and grab his bag so that he could accompany Elena and Alaric back to their home.

Damon sent Stefan ahead to the car and waited patiently as Harry locked his front door, clearing his throat so as not to startle the young wizard. Harry turned and fixed him with a wry stare that made Damon's insides squirm. He felt guilty at not trusting Harry initially, but he'd also relied on only himself for far too long to let go of the habit of the lifetime the moment a pretty face showed up. Another pretty face. Eh, maybe he wasn't that immune to pretty faces actually...

"It's all working out, but next time I'd appreciate it if you would trust me," Harry said to him, dropping his eyes down to the worn boards of the porch. Damon wanted to stroke the insecurity away from the crease between Harry's brows.

"I trust you," he said, simply. When Harry looked up, Damon was holding out his little finger. He looked into Harry's green eyes and smiled. "Pinkie promise."

* * *

Damon lay sprawled in one of the blood red armchairs in the main sitting room, throwing a ball so that it bounced on the sliver of bare wood visible beyond the fussy rug, ricocheting off the ornate fireplace, and back to where he easily caught it in his hands. He could almost hear the ghost of Giuseppe screaming at him to have better respect for his surroundings, and the dent he was making in the dark hardwood floor gave him a vicious sense of satisfaction. What was the point in being twenty-four forever if you couldn't be a little immature sometimes.

While those who were actually, or who were playing, high school seniors had been otherwise engaged for the day, Damon had tried to take the time to catch up on a little sleep. Nightmares of flames and desperation had other plans. He scowled and threw the next ball harder than necessary, the return bounce ricocheting wildly of course. Stefan appeared and snatched the ball out of the air just before it could collide with some no-doubt-priceless porcelain vase.

"Having fun, Damon?"

Damon sat up sharply.

"I'm sorry," he said, seriously.

"For throwing a ball?" Stefan asked, clearly confused.

"For getting into my own head, about Enzo. And not telling you what I planned. And dragging Elena into this because it suited me."

Stefan said nothing as he walked over to his older brother slowly, lowering himself into the armchair opposite.

"OK. Are you dying? That's twice I've heard you apologise today."

Damon laughed bitterly. What a reputation. He shook his head.

"No, I- huh. Hard." He paused and chewed his lip, willing himself to open up to his little brother, offer some sort of rope to bridge the chasm between them. "I know you've seen me at some pretty dark times, but Enzo was with me at the lowest point of rock bottom I will ever hit in my eternal life. When you're … when you're in the dark like that, and you're starving, and they've taken your eye just because they could…"

Stefan made an outraged noise in his throat, face contorted in disgust, and Damon nodded.

"Yeah, exactly. There's not a scrap of me that Enzo doesn't know, and he was my friend anyway, and I failed him. All those years I spent thinking I'd walked away and let him die. And now? Now I'm not sure it wouldn't have been better for that to be the case. Another half a century enduring that, alone?" He shivered. "I wanted to turn my humanity back on. I came here in the 90s because I wanted you to show me why I should have it on. But every time I went near the switch… No. It was better it stayed off."

Stefan was silent for a moment.

"You ever think our lives would be a lot easier if there were vampire therapists?" He asked suddenly. Damon chuckled.

"Only about every day," he agreed. "Maybe we can ask Harry. If there's a whole government we don't know about, there's bound to be magical therapists. Imagine not having to talk in metaphors and just be able to say 'look, here's all the fucked up shit I've experienced over my 150 year life, and it all started because my daddy didn't love me.'"

Damon looked over to see Stefan watching him carefully.

"Dad didn't love you?"

Damon sighed.

"God, that's a _long_ time ago, kid. No point going back there."

"I thought dad doted on us."

"Giuseppe doted on _you_ , I was always more of a mommy's boy," Damon said, breaking eye contact and tipping his head back to stare at the carved ceiling. "I was Giuseppe's favourite punching bag, physically and emotionally. Take one for the team, and all that."

"I didn't realise," Stefan said, his voice suffused with guilt.

"You weren't meant to realise, Stefan. If you didn't realise, then I did my job as older brother properly," Damon said, firmly. He pressed his lips together in a line and lifted his head to hold his brother's wide-eyed gaze. "I'm not apologising, and I wouldn't change it. That's probably the best I've ever done by you, and you won't take that away from me."

Maybe Stefan could hear the edge in his voice. The bit of Damon that still held pride in being an older brother, the bit of Damon that longed to forgive Stefan for his selfishness 150 years ago. The bit that _would not_ contemplate that innocent, doe-eyed, blonde haired boy that Stefan had been having to spend a moment in the focus of their father's wrath. Whatever Stefan saw in Damon's hard stare, he nodded.

"Bourbon?" He offered. "That's probably the most honest conversation we've had in a century."

"Please," begged Damon, dramatically throwing out his hand as Stefan offered him a crystal glass. "I need my anti-emotion juice."

The two looked out the window at the sound of tyres over leaves at the end of the drive. Elena and Harry pulled up outside the house, Elena jumping out and heading to drag her suitcase from the boot. Harry waved her off, and with a quick movement of his wand, the bags flew out of the car to knock politely at the door.

"I know Bon-Bon has all the drama, but his magic has all the style," Damon commented, earning a snort from Stefan. Damon reached over to the side table and picked up a thick wad of paper for heading to the door.

"Hi bambi, deed for signing," he said, waving the papers at Elena and moving to let Stefan take over. He perched himself at the edge of the porch, waving casually to Harry as the wizard headed into the house.

As Elena finished signing the deed, Damon felt as if an invisible barrier shot up at the threshold into the house. When Elena marched straight into the building without them, Stefan cleared his throat and tapped on the barrier to remind her that they would no longer be able to come inside automatically.

"Oh, sorry," Elena said, wincing sheepishly. "Stefan, would you please come inside." She swept her arm in a grand flourish, encouraging Stefan over the threshold. The vampire pecked her on the lips as he moved past, and Damon waited resignedly from his position on the porch.

Elena fixed him with a calculated stare.

"This is nice, I could finally get some peace and quiet from you," she said, examining her nails disaffectedly.

Damon tried not to flinch at her sudden resemblance to Katharine in that moment, trying to hide the hurt at the casual cruelty of threatening to deny him access to the one place in this whole damned world that he might actually call home. Instead he rolled his eyes, and tried to project brash annoyance.

"Yes yes, Damon is a bad guy, yadda yadda yadda. You're not the first to say it, and you won't be the last, sweetheart. Can we move this along?"

Elena narrowed her eyes at him, but moved to the side and invited him in. Damon brushed past her without looking at her, disappointment at her attitude settling like a stone in his stomach. Instead, he headed back to his tumbler of bourbon, and let his eyes settle on the intricate carvings surrounding the fireplace rather than any of the room's occupants. Stefan cleared his throat and quietly suggested that he and Elena head upstairs so she could unpack.

"That was a bit harsh," Harry said, flopping down onto the sofa he had slept on the previous night.

"Me? She's the one- "

"No, Elena," Harry interrupted. "You offered your home as a sanctuary, bit mean to threaten to keep you out."

Damon didn't acknowledge the sentiment, instead he sniffed and said, "Yes well, I did offer her up as Original bait without asking. There's probably only so many times you can put someone's life at risk before they really hate you."

Harry busied himself with pouring a glass of bourbon before answering.

"She doesn't hate you. She's upset because Jeremy wouldn't come stay here. Alaric is staying behind at the house to keep an eye on him, so I guess she's worried."

"Yet another time I've put her brother at risk," Damon lamented, thinking how much he would tear anyone who did the same to his brother limb from limb. Anyone except himself, admittedly. Though maybe he did the tearing in the form of emotional self-flagellation.

"Must be difficult, to properly care about mortal beings, when they're only on the planet for a short breath anyway," Harry said, watching Damon carefully over the top of his drink. Damon blinked at him in surprise. "Like, you know that given enough time, and it's not like you're short of it, that you and Stefan will be a constant for one another. But what's Elena, or Jeremy, or Bonnie to you, when they're going to die at some point anyway?"

Damon looked into Harry's green eyes and felt something twist uncomfortably within him. He thought back to a similar conversation had half a century ago, through laboured breathing in a cold and dark cell, whispering between the bars to one another.

"These might be the first mortals in my sadistic, vampiric life that I've actually cared about," he said slowly. What was with all the openness today? Maybe Stefan was right, maybe he was dying, or preparing for it anyway.

"And that's worse, because they're going to hurt you when they die. Why not get the hurt over with quickly?"

There was a beat of silence as the two men regarded one another, something soft and understanding passing between them.

"Are there therapists for magicals?" Damon asked, and Harry grinned.

"Could you tell? I would be a wreck if it wasn't for Mind Healing," he said, but thankfully didn't offer up anything further. Damon didn't think he could handle much more soul-baring today. He nodded, and swallowed the rest of his glass.

"OK magic boy, I'm done with the heart-to-hearts today. Pool?"

Harry's eyes lit up at that.

"Yes! Please tell me you're more of a challenge than Bonnie," he said cheekily, vaulting over the back of the sofa and hurrying to the pool table.

"No using witchy-woo stuff to cheat," Damon sped over to the table and wiggled his fingers at Harry in a vague gesture of magic.

"Oh, you just going to turn off being a vampire too?" Harry challenged, lining up the white and bending over the table. Damon eyed him appreciatively, eyes snapping up a fraction too late when Harry turned to look at him over his shoulder. He grinned lecherously in response to Harry's raised eyebrow.

"You don't need magic, you've got plenty of distraction techniques available," he teased, ducking as Harry swung at him with the cue.

"Your turn, lech," Harry snapped, tossing the cue over. Damon caught it deftly, and bent to line up his shot, wiggling his bum overtly in Harry's direction. He heard Harry's soft laugh behind him, and the sound spurred him on to an impressive shot. Harry nodded approvingly as Damon turned back without bothering to wipe the smug look from his face.

"Definitely more of a challenge than Bonnie."

They traded shots back and forth, daring each other to try more and more outrageous combinations, ' _hit all four sides before potting_ ' ' _try a chain of three_ ', both of them skipping around the table and alternating between laughter and quiet concentration. Damon stormed to a win for the first game, Harry fought back for the second.

"Best of three?" The wizard suggested, eyes sparkling in the evening light. Damon felt his stomach swoop, but he brushed it off and nodded, racking up the table once again.

"You're on, magic boy."

"Which room in the house would you say has the best bed?" Harry asked casually as Damon was distracted lining up the table _just so_.

"Mine, obviously," he scoffed. "Why?"

"If I win this game, I want your bed for the night," Harry demanded, raising one eyebrow in challenge as Damon shot up to stare at him. Now there was a thought…

"OK," he agreed, surprising Harry with his readiness. "But if I win, I get my bed, and you in it."

Harry's jaw dropped at his brazen suggestion and Damon burst out laughing.

"Obviously I need someone to hold me, I've had to be all touchy-feely today, I'm clearly vulnerable," he whined, batting his eyelashes in the perfect mimic of the damsels of his day. "I'll protect your virtue." Harry rolled his eyes, holding out his hand to shake, before immediately potting off the break.

"It's _on_ ," he declared.

This game was decidedly dirtier than their two previous, Damon flitted around the table at superhuman speed, and yet he felt sure that some of his shots were mysteriously taking last second deviations from their course. He flicked the end of the cue as Harry took shots, stepping back faster than the blink of an eye and arranging his face into the picture of innocence. As the game wore on, Harry was practically growling at him in frustration. Damon decided to see just how far he could push his luck and was about to move his hand to cover a pocket when Harry cried " _Levicorpus_!" And suddenly the world swung on its axis and Damon was whisked away from the table.

Damon watched Harry pot his final ball from upside down, his foot appearing to be tethered to an invisible rope from the ceiling.

"Kinky," he called out to the wizard. "If you like this kind of thing I've got something much more useful for you to do upstairs than cudd-" he broke of as Harry slapped his hand over Damon's mouth, the wizard's cheeks burning crimson. Damon pulled on every ounce of his maturity, and slathered his tongue over the palm of Harry's hand, causing him to cry out and jump back.

Harry wiped his hand on his jeans, face screwed up in disgust.

"Very mature," he whinged, but there was a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. The next moment, the laughter died down, and Damon watched the other man as best he could from his upside down position.

"So, Mary Jane," he teased softly. "I guess I'm sleeping in a guest room."

"I guess you are," Harry hedged, taking a tentative step closer. He reached out, and stroked Damon's cheek, and Damon couldn't help but close his eyes and turn into the tender touch a little more, feeling like a house cat. When he opened his eyes again, Harry's face was millimetres from his own. Despite not needing the air, he pulled in a sudden breath.

"It's a bad idea, right?" Harry asked.

"Pretty bad, yeah," Damon breathed, hardly daring to use his voice at all.

"You're pretty messed up."

"Pot, kettle."

Harry closed the minute gap between them and pressed his lips to Damon's own. Damon closed his eyes, Harry's evening stubble softly scratching his nose, suddenly highly aware of his slightly chapped lips, and then just as suddenly aware of nothing but the heat from Harry, the softly urgent press, the way Harry's fingers tightened slightly on his cheek as if to pull him even closer. Damon reached forward and tangled his fingers in Harry's unruly curls, tugging gently and pulling a moan from the other man. Before Damon was ready, Harry stepped back and pressed his fingers to his lips, breathing hard.

"Before you have a panic about professionalism, could you let me down? My blood is competing between rushing to my head or my other head," Damon joked crudely, instantly starling a snort out of Harry, and he waved his wand to let Damon crash unceremoniously to the floor.

"Don't suppose you're going to let me share the bed, despite losing?" Damon asked.

"No, I don't suppose I am," grinned Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your reviews, that (1) absolutely makes my day.


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